Siccama Fingering Chart

Irish Flute
1

From time to time people ask me for a copy of Siccama’s Fingering chart. Someone has just done that, so I thought it was time to make it more broadly available.

This is a big chart, and includes large numbers of alternate fingerings. I had to cut it up to scan it, and as you will see the original is a bit rough, but I think it’s quite useable. Anyone wishing to use it will have to print it out and work out where to overlap the two sets of pages.

I’d like to have cleaned it up and formatted it better, but time doesn’t permit just now. If anyone else wanted to clean it up, I’ll gratefully provide a home for it! (Check with me first, in case someone else has offered already!)

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/images/Siccama%20Fingering%20Chart.pdf

Terry

2

Thanks Terry. So even with the E hole in the ‘right’ place we are recommended to vent Eb. I had been wondering about that. Same as on the Boehm then.

3

Yep. Even with the hole in the right place and therefore much larger, E still benefits a bit from being better vented by opening Eb.

The difference produced by opening and closing Eb when playing xxx xxo is not as great as on an 8-key though. For example it only produces about a 20 cent sharpening of the 4th harmonic on the Siccama. On my Nicholson’s, it’s hard to get the 4th harmonic without the Eb key open and when you do it’s about 90 cents flat. Opening the Eb key makes it sound easily only about 10 cents flat. (It’s this misalignment of harmonics that makes the E sound so weak without the extra venting.)

Sigh. Playing the Siccama again reminds me just how lovely it sounds. And reminds me of Christopher Welsh, writing many years after Siccama’s death to reject Rockstro’s outrageous criticisms of Siccama as a player and maker:
Indeed, Siccama, when preluding on it, used to elicit notes which exceeded in purity and sweetness any sounds I have ever heard issue from a musiclal instrument.

Terry

4

Courtesy of Phil Marsh, you can now also download a compiled version, reduced to fit on a single page:

http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/images/SiccamaFingeringChart_Small.jpg

Terry