Happy New Year all!
I was playing tunes with a ‘classical’ flutist and tried playing her silver flute with the lip plate and wow it seemed like it was so easy to get a great sound on it. Are there Irish flutes with that sort of headjoint?
Thanks!
Yes. There are quite a few makers today offering headjoints which are more Boehm like for the simple system flute. However, I don’t think the difference is in the lip plate primarily, but in the shape of the embouchure hole. Boehm embouchures tend to be more rounded rectangles, or old style tv-screen embouchures. They are very easy to play loud and have a larger sweet spot; however, many players (me included) think that there is a major drawback, and that is that the range of tonal colours and expressiveness suffers.
If you want a Boehm-ish headjoint for your simple system flute, have a look here for instance:
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/heads.html (just scroll down)
http://woodenflutemaker.com/
http://www.noyflutes.com/index.html
Those makers came to mind on top of my head. There are others as well.
Now, I just need to take the dog for a walk, then I’m off home to some warming
whisky 
In addition to the makers Henke mentions, Dave Copley also makes a more squared embouchure, and Chris Abell offers headjoints in that style, too. http://abellflute.com/head-joint.html
I think Healy embouchures are also more squared, George Ormiston does or did offer that cut as an option, and I think Windward flutes (Forbes Christie) can deliver such a cut, as well.
Yes, Copley does the rounded rectangle embouchure. I haven’t found where it limits my tonal colors though.
If that cut is similar to Boehm, then Jazz flautists seem to do well on them in terms of tonal color.
well the blues & reds are okay,
the greens are a bit dodgy
don’t ya think?
I just try to avoid the brown note.
good idea, wouldn’t do much for one’s popularity!
All of which begs the question: 
What can brown do for you?
Well, the flute is still probably one of the most expressive instruments there is, right? But to me the silver flute feels less expressive and has a smaller range of tonal colours than the simple system flute. My impression have always been that the simple system flutes feel more living, more reactive to what one puts into it. It changes character depending on how I push it, the silver flute does too, but not at all to the same extent. All the simple system flutes with Boehm style embouchure cuts I’ve played have been reminicent of Boehm flutes. Very easy to play, very easy to push and easy to get the hang of, but in the end less rewarding because they react less to ones input. Of course that’s just my opinion, and other people obviously have different opinions since Boehm style embouchure cuts are pretty popular. billcoulter obviously prefer this kind of cut, so maybe it was unnecessary for me to bring this up.
Anyway, just my 2cl of
whisky
I wonder if the OP was only referring to embouchure cut? His wording referred to the whole head-joint… and the answer to what I perceive his question to be is a straight “No”.
A modern “classical” Boehm head-joint (whatever material it is constructed from, with or without lip-plate and riser if un-thinned wood…) has an expanding (from the stopper end) “parabolic” bore and can only be used in conjunction with a cylindrical flute body. Simple System flutes as mostly used in ITM, with or without keys, have a tapering conoid body-bore and must have a cylindrical head-joint to have an in-tune scale. You cannot combine an expanding head with a contracting body, nor a cylindrical head with a cylindrical body, and get an in-tune scale. You must have one or the other combination of taper and cylinder. On either type of head you can have all manner of variation of embouchure construction and cut which will affect the response and tone-character, but at least as important is the different way in which the cylinder/taper combination affects the acoustic compression in the bore - and that affects the playing response as perceived by the player as well as the intonation possibilities of the complete tube. A modern cut embouchure in a cylindrical head on a conoid body will seem different to a traditional style one to the player, but won’t seem the same as the same cut in a Boehm head on a cylindrical body…
By all means work to find out what seems an optimum combination for your tastes as a player, but you need to have at least some grasp of the inner workings and acoustic fundamentals to even begin to explore the viable possibilities.
Jem, yer thinking too much!
Let’s just assume that the OP meant embouchure cut, okay?
Don’t think that’s a safe assumption! The differences he noticed would at least 50% have been to do with the different bore rather than just the embouchure cut - Boehm tubes have a much readier, easier “speech” and response than do Simple System and other conoid bodied flutes because of the bore and the way it works, no matter what embouchure cut you combine that with. So what he noticed and liked about it won’t just have been to do with the lip-plate, riser and hole configuration…
well, they’re not bloody clarinets are they!
My take (like Jem) is that Bill was looking for a Boehm type metal headjoint for his Irish flute, or at least one very like it in wood to give him the same result.
Sounds to me like Bill was really digging the sound he and the Boehm made so easily, so it may be what he likes best. Though if he just wants an easier blow for his wooden flute he could take the gamble (to see if he would like it on his flute) and get a new headjoint, or just buy another makers (Irish) flute that is easier to play for him-he could still find that with the right cut for him through some trials. But yeah, it will sound much different than that particular Boehm he liked so well too. Of course, he can always form an embouchure to sound more Boehm-ish on his flute too, but it might take some work.
Seems no easy choice to get that sound he liked, unless he does a lot of flute shopping, or instead just goes out and buys the same Boehm flute to play.
I wish you luck Bill!
Barry
A Gemeinhardt 2SP is $400 right now, and it plays decent enough (I’ve had one for a few years), not too shabby…
Wow thanks so much for all of the great information and ideas. What I liked about the silver flute was not the sound but the way it seemed to play so easily. My flute is a Sam Murray - 3 key and I love the sound of it. Seems like some days though I can barely get a low D - other days it honks with the best of them. I take it from Jem that the bore is important to the ease of play as well as the lip plate. Not sure where to go from here except to consider a new head joint for the Murray, Has anyone done this kind of thing? Seems like Noy makes one that would work well with the Murray?
Thanks again to all!
Bill, if you like the tone of your Murray, then just stick to it-we all have off days when things don’t work for us-the more you play, the more the flute will do what you want it to do. No need for a new headjoint-just more practice will do the job. Flute is an ongoing practice, and a never ending journey. Enjoy the ride.
Edited to add: Of course, you can do what you like-a new headjoint with a different embouchure cut may make it easier to play for you-but it seems it’s a gamble without being able to try it first. Most people who don’t get on with a flute after a good amount of time will look for a different flute that plays more to their liking.
Or find a teacher who can help you advance and get past some embouchure problems you might be having if you really like your flute.
Flute on!
Barry
Bill, I remember not being able to get the low notes out of your flute. It’s the only flute I’ve had that problem with. Maybe it’s got a leak in the headjoint? I’ve played other Murray’s since that I didn’t have trouble with. Try the suck test on the headjoint and check the cork position. Or get Lars to do that stuff for you…
Maybe it just needs a repadding. I’ve had that happen to me, sometimes not getting the lower notes, sometimes they were ok. thinking it was me, ad then finding out that a few keys where slightly leaky. How long was it since it was repadded?
You haven’t washed the pads with
whisky? 
that would make them leak
Hmmmmm. It does indeed sound to me as though you need to take the above advice, Bill - 1st do a thorough leak test and make sure the whole flute is as it should be. Thereafter, don’t expect your bottom register to be as full, rich and easily found as you would wish at all times - we all (save maybe for the genuinely gifted/top-line pros/hardest practisers) have embouchure struggles and variations, good days and bad days: it will come and go - treasure the good phases, try to remember how they feel and replicate that feeling as much as you can.
I’ve only had goes on 2-3 Murray flutes, but they have all been very easy and generous speakers, so I very much doubt there is any mileage in seeking a different head/embouchure cut.
Going back to the Boehm thing, your comments suggest you don’t quite “get” (forgive me if I’m making a wrong interpretation/assumption here!) the structural function of the lip-plate on a metal Boehm (or other type, for that matter) head-joint. On a wooden head in simple form, regardless of the internal bore the maker can turn the outside profile to suit…parallel walled to give an embouchure chimney of the desired depth, or “thinned”, leaving full necessary thickness around the embouchure area but cutting away more of the timber elsewhere. In metal and again regardless of internal bore, no maker is going to seek to reproduce the wall-thickness of even a thinned wooden head - far too unnecessarily wasteful of expensive raw material plus heavy and probably response-reducing. Early all-metal heads used a profile similar to a thinned wood head - a short section of wider tube of diameter equivalent to the outer wall position desired was concentrically mounted over the main head tube and held in place by flared rings at its ends, a chimney tube then being soldered in place - like this RRC&Co flute currently on ebay (note the classic English/Rudall elliptical embouchure cut!).
Makers quite soon realised that making a suitably strong chimney riser and soldering it to the main tube and the lip-plate to that was a quite sufficient support for a partial lip-plate, again saving on materials and construction work. So, the lip-plate has no special virtue in tone production - it is simple to support the lip against the flute and the flute against the player’s face whilst providing the correct depth of embouchure chimney in lieu of the thickness of the wall of a wooden head. In itself it has no effect on the timbre or voice of the flute! There are aspects of the design of the surface around the embouchure that can affect tone production - the actual angles of slope from the different edges of the hole, cut-away air channels, “wings” as in the German Reform models…etc., but they can be made (and are by some makers) on a Simple System solid wood head-joint as well as on a metal Boehm type one with lip-plate and are not per se functions of the lip-plate. Some players reckon the material of the actual working edge of the embouchure can affect tone production and, again in any kind of flute, may have wooden or ivory or different metals or mother-of-pearl or whatever slivers inset there - have a look at the websites of some of the specialist Boehm head-makers to see what I mean.
From your last post, Bill, I’m now quite sure I was right that what you noticed in the different response of the Boehm flute you tried was, in fact, exactly what Boehm was all about - the ease and richness and volume of tone production, which indubitably are “better” on his design - but which also have a distinctly different character from almost all earlier flutes, to the extent that his critics said his instruments did not sound like proper flutes! You might find it worthwhile to pick up the pdf of Boehm’s Treatise that was the subject of a recent thread here and read for yourself what he sought to achieve, how he went about it and the logic of the outcomes. (pm me your e-address and I can zap it to you.) The bore and the large and better placed tone-holes (plus reliable mechanism) have far more to do with that response character than does the embouchure cut or the material it is in or the construction of the head-joint.
A Sam Murray flute in proper working order darn well ought to be able to give you all you could wish for for ITM if you develop your own technique! Good luck.