A question…do you ever use Boehm style flute in IR traditional music? If so, are you pleased with the results? Have played in a session? What did the other musicians say when you produced the shiny stuff from the case? What led you to play it? Any influence from a master player? Which category (jigs etc) do you prefer to play on Boehm the most?
Thanks! 
T
Me personally, no. But Joannie Madden does and the results sound pretty good to my ears. I prefer the sound of a wooden flute for Irish music though, in fact, for any folk music.
I believe Noel Rice plays a Boehm-system flute with Baal Tinne.
That’s good stuff, by the way–well worth a listen or three.
–James
I have used my Boehm flute to play some Swedish trad music and Kletzmer, but never use it for Irish stuff. I prefere the sound of a wooden flute, I find it much more thick, resonant and sweet. But with some really strange chromatic scales that occur, espessially in Kletzmer music, the Boehm system is a great help.
I play my boehm flute when I need to, I don’t have a keyed irish flute yet so when I need to play in an odd key I’ll switch to the boehm for a tune, nobody seems to complain
A wooden Boehm flute is capable of a more reedy sound than a metal one, I think. But you will probably get funny looks at a session with a Boehm flute. Some people, like Noel Rice and Joanie Madden, are forgiven, but most people are looked at strangely.
I manage to get a pretty reedy sound on mine, it’s a little more buttery but it’s a nice tone, it tends to blend really well with wood flutes too.
I have used mine for as long as I’ve been playing,as I don’t have a wooden flute yet.I also have the bamboo flutes I’ve made,which I play a good bit.
I think it sounds OK,but I do get funny looks at any sessions I manage to get to. I’m going to order a Casey Burns flute soon ,not because I don’t like my silver flute,but because I want to have a wooden one so much.
I’ll probably still play the silver some,but not as much as the Casey Burns.
It’s not so much the materiel as it is the bore design, a boehm flute has a parabolic curve in the head joint & a cylindrical body. This puts the choke in the headjoint - the lower register is more solid but the third register is a little weaker - overall the sound is more of a sine wave & is sweeter. Older simple system flutes have a cylindrical headjoint with a conical body - which puts the choke down just under the low D hole. You have to push the lower register harder but you can get a reedier sound out of it. There are a few players who prefer Boehm design, most of them started before the big renasaince of all the modern simple system makers & after all the good old simple systems were snatched up for a song.
thank you for the input, folks
Talking about getting a funny look…how about joining a Baloque Ensemble with a bamboo flute in the key of D…
[quote="brad maloneyIt’s not so much the materiel as it is the bore design, a boehm flute has a parabolic curve in the head joint & a cylindrical body. This puts the choke in the headjoint - the lower register is more solid but the third register is a little weaker - overall the sound is more of a sine wave & is sweeter. Older simple system flutes have a cylindrical headjoint with a conical body - which puts the choke down just under the low D hole. You have to push the lower register harder but you can get a reedier sound out of it. There are a few players who prefer Boehm design, most of them started before the big renasaince of all the modern simple system makers & after all the good old simple systems were snatched up for a song.[/quote]
Brad, are you trying to say that a Boehm flute has a weaker 3rd octave than a conical bore? That it chokes in the 3rd octave? That’s completely wrong; Boehms excel in the 3rd octave, and do fine in the bottom, while most conical bore flutes can’t play convincingly much above an f’‘’. Baroque flutes can play in the upper octaves, but they have very weak bottoms. All simple-system conical flutes, not just older ones, have an (essentially) cylindrical headjoint.
Boehms were – to the detriment of folk music sensibilities – designed for evenness of tone throughout the 3 octaves, and have a more precise equal temperament tuning. Overcoming this, the keywork (for ornamentations and that incessant type-writer clacking), and the deliberately different embouchure cut all make the Boehm design a design generally not preferred for ITM.
However, being an instrument, and music being music, there are those able to adapt a Boehm to ITM convincingly. If you can do that, people will not mind you pulling one out at a session; the problem is that most people can’t. They usually sound like classical players trying to play trad, or they can’t do either very well. But, ultimately, I think that’s the player, not the instrument; if the player is a trad player, they can make it work. Hey, it’s been done on a banjo – why not a Boehm flute?
Gordon
I was never really classically trained on the flute, but the first time I picked one up was at a girlfriends flute lesson, her teacher said my tone sounded like an irish flute, so I decided I’d find some irish music to play, of course for playing classical music my tone is all wrong and I don’t tongue enough.
Hi everyone, I have been playing ITM boehm system flutes for a long time, starting around 1985. A few years ago, when I discovered the simple system flute revival, I got a seery and spent a year or so playing it almost exclusivly, just to try to get to the same level of comfort as the boehm. After two years, due to all the other music need to play, I had to concentrate on the boehm again. Now I play ITM on a boehm with a Hoza wooden head or a hand cut metal head and on a six key Mc Gee and I find that I am more confused than ever about the various opinions I see on the net discussions, comparisons etc. I started out thinking that a simple system flute was the obvious choice for ITM because of all the net talk, but my experience playing didn’t reflect this. I now feel that both systems are equally at home in the ITM context, they are just different. Just for the record, some of the advantages of boehm flute are that it is very loud, which is good in the noisy sessions we have here(the noise I am talking about comes from the drinkers, not the players), as well as being very soft, if required. It is very flexable in terms of tone, ranging from sweet and round to reedy to harsh. It responds to rhythmic pulses very well. It is also very handy when we need to play a vocal tune in a weird key. The normal ITM ornamentation (cuts, taps, roles, crans) is available, but is slightly modified. The trill keys provide ways of doing cuts that are effective, but differnt from simple system flutes, as does the thumb key, and the open holes do provide the option of glides etc. the advantages of the simple system flute are well known. I did have a problem with key clicks, but that has recently been reduced after a service. So, I think that if you don’t have a simple system flute, you can make good use of a boehm.
Michael
Michael; I’ve always felt that what you’ve said (as you can read into my comments a few squares up) is pretty much true.
There is nothing particularly confusing, though, about trad players’ feelings about the simple system; it’s more historically authentic, and it’s subsequent tone and sound (particularly solo or recorded) is more readily identifiable as traditional. Most Irish players learn, initially, and play on an antique or a modern versions of the wooden conical. It is, like it or not, the flute system of choice.
But many trad players, in the days before conicals became readily available again, turned to the Boehm and kept playing ITM. Its sound is slightly different, and it has many advantages (as you say), but ultimately it has some sonic and physical differences that make a world of difference to lovers of the conical flute, and consequently ITM.
Like many things in life, it’s really a matter of perspective; if you are more comfortable on a Boehm, and like ITM, using one for ITM is a natural for you. Most players learning ITM, though, will most likely choose and prefer a conical flute. Some of it is completely, but validly, subjective; wood feels and sounds more organic, fingers touch holes directly and not a mechanism (in most cases), and its looks, its sometimes funky tuning, and its darker, reedier tone can be identified more with the music. In a loud session, however, all bets are off.
In normal reality, there are no hard and fast rules about this, but in a purist’s reality, there are. By definition, purists draw the line in a lot of areas that define what they call pure, and some of it can be historically and technically arbitrary; flutes themselves didn’t really come into ITM until the mid to late 19th c., accordians about the same time period (weren’t invented until around then), banjos came in about the early 20th c., and bouzoukis, mandolins and such, not until the 1960s.
That said, even a fine player like Joanie Madden delivers a tone that many don’t quite love (but few think is wrong or bad) on her Boehm; it really is a matter of taste and preference, but more often than not (I believe) very few can really, significantly, hear the difference if it’s really done well.
So if you really like playing a Boehm – since I really think it comes down to what you want to be playing – I don’t see a real problem with your choosing one, for ITM or anything else.
Gordon
Paddy O’Donoghue from East Clare is another great flute player
who uses a Boehm .He’s the father of the mighty singer and bouzouki
player Cyril O’Donoughue
it is encouraging to know there are players of ITM on Boehm…
Hi everyone,
thanks gordon for your reply. I think you are right about the purist thing. It seems they are a bit more vocal (typeal?) with their opinions on boehms ( although this thread is unusually supportive of the boehm in ITM). I am very supportive purests, I think they are the pillars of the tradition, but I like to be impure 80% of the time!
I just would like to encourage people who are interested in ITM and don’t yet have simple sytem flutes to “just have a go” with whatever they can get their hands on.
B.T.W I find it very interesting to play both systems as technical elements from one can transfer to the other, resulting in approaches that can yield good results. I am not thinking here in the ITM context so much, more in the world of free form improvisation, jazz and experimental music, which is probably not the focus of most of us here, but it can help in ITM too. One good example of interest to ITM players with keyed flutes is to use the d# key as you would on the boehm. I get he impression that most ITM players don’t open the d# key unless they are playing d#, but I find that it using it as on the boehm strengthens the tone and intonation of some notes considerably.
MichaelS, most modern keyed irish flutes are built and voiced to play the
E without the pinkie key. my flute gives a sharp E if I play this note with the Eb key.
Hi everyone,
yes michel, I have read that many modern flutes are designed to not use the d# key. On my Mc Gee, the e is flat without the key, but on other flutes this may not be so, so I guess it comes down to the individual flute. Now that I think of it, I may have mentioned to terry to build it like that. I will check next time I talk to him. Despite that, the tone of e and f# are noticably brighter with the d# key open, which could be a good thing (then again, it might not, depending on your taste). I am just advocating a bit of cross fertilization between the ideomatic playing techniques ( a very non-purist thing probably)
regards
Michael