I thought I would share my latest obsession with a piece of wood!
The flute was made by Harry Pedler & Co. about 1925 in Elkhart Indiana.
The head is Ebonite and the body is Grenadilla (Blackwood) with nickel-silver keys and rings. The original crutch is included, seen in top right of first picture and the receptacle can be seen on the bottom of the flute in the second picture. This crutch makes for a very good purchase upon the flute and really eases the use of the left thumb. Another unusual feature of this flute is the open G# key (it must be held shut to play G or lower). This G# takes a little getting used to, but does seem to improve the tone of the LH notes.
What makes this flute so wonderful is the tone! It has a very dark bottom end that can bee pushed to reedy when desired. Yet the flute plays fluidly up into the 3rd octave and the tone remains sweet! VERY NICE! I’m still a hack with the keys, but I’ll keep practicing (the lovely sound keeps me coming back to this flute).
Information I’ve gleaned from the internet about Harry Pedler: He worked for Rudall, Carte & Co. but left London in 1905, recruited to work for Conn by William Gronert. In 1916 Pedler and Gronert formed American Manufacturing Company (specializing in woodwinds), when Gronert died in 1919 the company became Harry Pedler & Co. the company was sold in 1930. Pedler started a new company in 1932 that went on to become Harry Pedler and Sons till his son sold the company to Selmer in 1958. Harry Pedler was especially well regarded for his clarinets.
Previously I had no real interest in Boehm system flutes. About a month ago I purchased a NUVO J-Flute (Plastic Boehm) for my daughter (who preferred to stick with her violin). So I started messing about with the J-Flute and enjoyed its strong tone and fine intonation. Much to my surprise, even a total klutz such as myself can learn to play the Boehm system. So in my usual flute philandering manner started to seek a wooden Boehm flute (wanted to see what it sounded like). Well I am mighty impressed with the Harry Pedler & Co. flute. Admittedly the J-Flute is stronger with more accurate tuning, but the Pedler just sounds so wonderful.
Hiyah Jordan,
Have you ever tried a covered holed, boehm bore, simple system? I had a Boosey for a short while, 1922, ebonite, high pitch, but had nice open tone. I would have kept it but I felt I was missing the open holes and the mechanism felt a bit slow. Still Paddy Taylor made some sound on one. They generally don’t generate much interest on ebay. Might be the best of both worlds if you dont mind covered holes and like the open tone.
Take Care,
Patrick
I was just thinking of posting something similar. I just bought a German wooden Boehm flute with a metal headjoint circa the '20’s as well. It plays awesome and I can get a good Irish style out of it. I play a lot of tunes in off keys, e.g. F, Fm, Gmix, Cm, C, Dm, and use the Boehm for that. It looks similar to the picture below, but the body is more like your flute with french pointed arms, plus the unusual G trill key (but with a closed G#). Mine (as is most likely yours) is a professional quality flute and I’m lucky to have gotten for such a low price ($1800).
Here’s a picture with more detail of the G# key, with its independent screw adjustment for the key and travel. I originally thought the touch had been broken and mended, but it is actually just ornamentation.
I also like the thumb-key arrangement and the crutch makes holding the flute very comfortable.
Hey Patrick,
Was your Boehm a conical bore or cylindrical and I’m not sure what you mean by “simple system with covered holes”? Were all the holes covered?
I like the feeling and simplicity of open holes. However the keys on the Pedler are very lively and I can even occasionally get a good finger vibrato with then.
Hey Jason,
Does your flute also have the reform head? If so, do you like it?
Funny, from what I’ve read my flute is considered a German style Boehm (open G#) and your German Boehm had the closed G#!
The Pedler is definitely a professional quality instrument. I suppose that is why it is so captivating!
Hi Jordan,
The Boosey I had was Boehm cylindrical bore (tapered head) and had what might be called plateau keys(?) covering the six open holes and the others were keyed as on an eight key ( Boehm foot joint) Most of the ones like this Ive run across over here have been high pitch. Mine just about played in 440 with the headjoint nearly falling off but much better in its designed pitch. They regularly go on ebay between 100 and 250 pounds. Pictures of Paddy Taylor (his was a Rudall Carte I believe) show him with the head nearly falling off. I was listening to The Boy in the Gap and Billy Clifford a lot (who plays Boemh and Radcliffe system). I was trying to get that sound but eventually decided I enjoyed the conical sound better.
If you are asking me if my headjoint looks like the one in my attached picture, it does. It’s definitely different, so much so that I fitted my modern silver and gold Armstrong headjoint to the body which amazingly works really well but makes the flute play and sound like a modern metal flute. Overall, I prefer the original headjoint–it produces more of a woody, nutty tone.
I was thinking about the open G#–that might make cuts and rolls on G, F and E difficult (I use my L3 for all that) having to keep the pinky down.
i have a Boosey “Pratten perfected” flute that is a cylindrical bore…it need some work which i am not going to do to it and would pass it on for $700 which is what i got it on ebay years ago, it’s beautiful and i can send pictures and more info, i think it’s a worthy project.
It has a price tag to match, but it has the most languidly fluid dark coffee tones I’ve ever heard from a Boehm flute.
Dunnp - I can only guess that the reason why there is little interest in the kind of Boehm bore type flute in the link you’ve posted, is due to the mis-pitch for our A=440Hz standards. The one you’ve posted plays at A=452Hz too - nothing short of a tenon graft can rescue it to modern pitch.
It was the German virtuoso and flute teacher, Schwedler who referred to Boehm bore flutes as having the elegance of a cannon. I’m sorry I missed this one:
In my view, it’s more interesting than the Boehm bore ones: firstly, being a complicated simple system flute (if such a term exists!), it has the unusual capability of playing the third octave high D and high E using separate levers like a split E mechanism found on Boehm flutes which makes the third octave notes purer and less brittle. It also has a double Gsharp key. Most importantly - the flute head actually slides within the tenon: this means that you can play at A=440Hz pitch. It is a conical bore design: strong low D right down to low B (even more than most wooden Boehms).
If you look at the first picture in this post, it shows the makers mark on both the head and body of the Pedler flute. So YES the head is original to the flute. I have wondered due to the elaborate mechanism for the G# key, if this was a special order. I’ll keep looking for another Pedler flute. Conn flutes of this period that I’ve found all had closed G# keys.
I remember reading somewhere, Theobald Boehm wanted his flutes made of wood and also wanted a larger bore of 20 mm (Both of which he though improved the tone.)
I wasn’t sure if the head was taken from a different Pedler flute than the body, or if the perhaps the original head had gone, and been replaced by a later version.
As far as I can tell, open Gsharp flutes tend to have more stable mechanisms. The challenge I’ve found trying to play them is dealing with the Gsharp finger fatigue after a few minutes.
Yes you’re right - I should have clarified that the Boehm bore (as opposed to simple system conical) was less interesting to me for the C concert pitch flute. The alto flute (20mm bore, unless it’s an Eva Kingma) has a great tone even in its metal versions.
