on skip healy’s website i saw that he sells these keyless chromatic flutes with 10 holes: http://www.skiphealy.com/keylessflute_chromatic
do you know anything about them? i’m just curious, i’ve never seen anything similar…
do you remember when Boehm made that thing with the open G# key…and you had to put down L3 & L4 at the same time go get a G natural?
Kinda the same thing with an open Eb and a couple of other holes…
The D model is extraordinarily difficult to manage unless you have hands like an Oran-u-tan.
The F model is more reasonable. I had a 10-hole A fife from SKip that was fun.
Doc
I haven’t tried the chromatic keyless D flute but I do have a Healy ten hole Bb fife. It’s a good instrument and well made. I can play just about anything I want on it. The hole positions require an interesting grip for me, kind of tight. As Doc said, F maybe a better handling sizes.
Feadoggie
do you remember when Boehm made that thing with the open G# key…and you had to put down L3 & L4 at the same time go get a G natural?
Kinda the same thing with an open Eb and a couple of other holes…
mmm i think i’ve understood… so, 6 holes + the G# (G) and the Eb (D), then probably the C hole for the left thumb, but one hole is missing… is there a F nat hole for the right thumb? is sounds cool… 
EDIT: actually it would make more sense if the left thumb hole was for the Bb rather than for the C nat …
I’ve just done the sums - ten fingers is eleven notes and then the next octave. The western chromatic scale is 12 notes with the thirteenth being the octave. So one must be missing?
And thinking about it, it is either the C-nat or the B-flat. Anyone know which of these it is? Skip says that there are no cross fingerings needed, so how does he do it? He’s not doing something clever with a double hole is he?
Chris.
You can find a fingering chart for his chromatic fifes here: http://www.fifeanddrum.com/support/fingering.shtml
I’d love to have one, but I just don’t have that kind of money to spare. Now, if someone could make one in PVC…
-Don
Hey Chris,
Don’t know if this helps. Here’s a picture of my old Healy 10-hole fife:
Here’s a discription of the holes and their orientations:
The 6-tone holes are at 12:00
The Right Pinky hole would be at 10:30
The Right Thumb hole would be at 6:00
The Left Pinky hole would be at 1:30 (this appears odd in the photo, but my pinky falls right over the hole).
The Left Thumb hole would be at 7:30 (this is the one I would move to 6:00)
The information above is all approximate!
All 8-holes on the top were great, it was the thumb holes that gave me a hard time (this was an ~ 16" fife, not a ~24" flute). But I like to play with a modified piper’s grip and have squat fingers.
All the Best!
Ok, thanks sutmo for the link to the fingering chart.
As I read the chart, the C Natural is indeed the one note that still needs a cross fingering/half hole. But it does on an ordinary 6 hole keyless too anyway…
Thanks, and thanks Sillydill for the picture.
'Bye
cool
i use the piper’s grip (and now i’m also learning the normal one), so i might be able to handle the low D flute if the maker puts one key for the right hand instead of the Bb hole (my left thumb wouldn’t be there)… interesting to know 
actually maybe i’ll try to make a PVC flute like that, just to see how it feels