I just found this web site that had some information on the 5 key wooden flute used in Cuban Charanga music.
http://home.earthlink.net/~charanga/
Does anybody listen to this music at all? The sound clips I’ve heard are very nice.
Yeah, it’s great music…it’s got a great rhythm but is more refined and elegant sounding than son or most salsa, partially due to the use of strings rather than horns.
Check out http://www.descarga.com for recordings (of charanga and tons of other Afro-Cuban and Latin music) as well as interesting related articles.
best,
Micah
Well, i just came across this site myself. Was going to post a new topic, but lo-and-behold, it has already been mentioned. Wow, i really like the charanga flute style of playing. Here is an interesting interview with Richard Egües, a flute player for the famous Cuban charanga Orquesta Aragón:
http://www.lafi.org/magazine/interviews/egues.html
Has some interesting comments about the role of the wood flute in the development of the charanga flute playing style.
(i couldn’t help lifting the pic of Johnny Pacheco for my own pic here at chiff; it is so cheezey!)
Interesting interview.
Don’t most charanga flute players play small-holed French (or French-style) flutes? (i.e. Noe Freres, etc.)
Supposedly they move the cork closer to the blowhole to make it easier to play on the 3rd octave (and runining the 1st octave).
One of my favourite flute players everywhere is a Charanga player , but he plays metal flute:
http://www.maraca.cult.cu/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004SVFJ
Indredible player, well worth a listen. ¡Desde la isla!
Ooooohhh!
And I thought that was really you 
Mary
cough, hack! 
Yes, i’m gathering that that is the case from what i’ve read (see this link in particular: http://home.earthlink.net/~charanga/five.htm ). Wasn’t aware that they changed the cork position, but it makes sense: i couldn’t for the life of me figure how they were hitting those high, squeeky notes. I wonder if any of those charanga lads have ever busted out any licks on the likes of a olwell, murray, wilkes etc?
on another note: i am personally interested in the subtle link between irish music and charanga-style syncopation (which i sometimes detect in, say, larry nugent’s playing…)
i don’t know, seems like they ought to try out an olwell, or a boehm-style abell wood flute…
The silver Boehm flute is commonly used in charanga now.
Micah
Did they favor these French flutes because of their smaller holes? Would English style flutes would be too loud in the third octave? Or were the French flutes just what was at hand in Cuba? I play for Irish music on one of these French style flutes, and it’s loud enough for the job if you ask me, not to mention easy to play.
I’m glad you changed your avatar; your old one gave me the kreepz.
Anyway, jo non soy cubano, but i’d be willing to bet that they used that kind of flute because that’s what was available in the area at the time when the style developed. Playing on the third octave, any kind of flute will be loud enough anyway, and with a handful of French colonies in the area, there should be flutes from millitary bands, if nothing else, available.
g
that is my intuition too, glauber. as we all know, wood flutes have that special somthin’ that cannot be captured on the silver boehm. don’t see why this would be any different with charagna style flute playing. seems a shame that the silver boehm has taken over (what should we call it?) the traditional flute playing of cuba.
I did… growing up in Puerto Rico, for some “odd reason” . However it was popular back in the '70s that it is today though. I did not know that there was a Cuban Charanga flute, most of the time was playing with regular boehm.
I guess that my crazy idea of playing “guantanamera” on an Irish flute was not that crazy after all. 
.
Luis