I was given and old mollenhauer & sons simple system flute a while back and have been looking for a fingering chart for it since it’s got about as many keys as my boehm flutes but I have no idea how they all work, any ideas?
There’s a fingering chart for an 8-key simple-system flutes available at http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/fingering.html.
How many keys do you have, exactly? Some of these old German flutes had up to 16 keys.
Starting with the keys on the footjoint (you probably have two keys there, for low C-natural and C#, unless you have a B foot on that flute), the first key you’ll encounter is the D# key, then moving up you’ll have two keys for F-natural, a key for G-sharp, a key for Bb, and a long one for C natural. You may have more keys than that, but you probably won’t have much occasion to use them.
I think it’s got around 16, I’ll have to wait until I get home to find out for sure. I know it’s got a low B though, I can’t get it to actually play it but I can play the low C and there’s another key after it.
That must be a pretty heavy piece of artillery you’ve got there…with all that silver (even nickel silver, which is probably what this is), it must weigh a ton.
When you’re counting, make sure you’re counting keys and not just touches (the part that you touch to make the key open). Some keys have two touches – for example some older flutes have two touches for the Bb key so you can operate it with either hand. Both levers operate the same key.
yup, it’s mighty heavy, if it wasn’t conical bore it’d probably weigh even more
checked it out, it’s got 11 keys