“Take the keys off of a Blackwood Boehm, plug up the
appropriate holes, and you have a simple system flute
with all the volume of a Boehm.”
Proposed at another discussion. I can’t wrap my
tiny little brain around this one. I just can’t believe
it could be that simple Any thoughts?
Has the person who said it done it?
I don’t play Boehm, but a friend of mine does, and we’ve discussed the fingering differences enough. At first blush, my money says that you’d run into problems having a plugged Boem operate like a simple-system instrument just on the fingering. I could be wrong, though.
I’d love to hear from someone who has tried this! I have a very old blackwood Boehm flute with one disintegrated tone hole that looked like a very expensive repair. It would be great to bring it back to life this way, but something tells me that the large cylindrical bore might require really huge tone holes, or long distances between them.
I remember having my old gemeinhardt apart to clean
one time and covering as many holes that i could
with my fingers. It seemed to play a scale of half tones
as I recall.
I’m pretty sure this just won’t work. The non-boehm keyed flutes we’re used to on this board are almost always simple-system flutes with extra holes, and keys to control them. A boehm flute, however, is a completely different animal. If we ignore the holes on the foot, there are nine holes on the body of a boehm flute that are normally open. Close them all and you get a low D. Open them all and you get the middle C#. That’s where the similarity between the boehm system and simple systems ends. There’s no three holes you could close that would leave you with six holes that would play like a simple-system flute. In addition, the holes are much larger, and might be impossible to close with your fingertips.
I believe someone, maybe Kirk B {apologies if I have the wring name here}, has modified a Boehm to play with simple system fingering a la Radcliffe. Boehmcliffe he called it. Seemed like a great project and along the lines of what we’re talkindg about here. Really switch the f and f sharp I think he used sax touches.
Even without looking at my Boehm flute, I can tell you it’s impossible with a modern Boehm. First major challenge (of many) would be to cover the C/C# hole, the one on top; it’s way above the next hole which is half of the A double hole mechanism. Even if one could make the stretch, it would be impossible to cover the huge Boehm holes of a modern band flute. Terry McGee’s Boehm is Boehm in bore/headjoint only; the fingering mechanism is completely different from today’s flutes.
Yep, that was me. It works great. I ended up ditching the Sax touches and getting some ornamental metal buttons from a craft store. Basically I cut off the trill key touches, and then added the new touches so that it plays f# with R1 just like a simple system flute. My RH fingers shifted up a half step. To play f nat you have to hang R1 a bit off the bottom of the R1 key and hit the original touch next to it along with the new R1 touch. I also had to cut some of the little tabs off that controlled multiple keys going down with one touch, basically making everything work independently.
So it seems to me, Kirk, that basically you’d need keys in any case. Is that right?
The Japanese use to have a “Folk Flute” made in the 70s that looked like a Boehm with restrictive plugs (with smaller finger holes) instead of keys. Wish I could find a picture of one, all of the links on the thread that mentioned them are broken.
Yep. I know it doesn’t help the OP with his quest for a keyless Boehm flute but I was confirming dunp’s post that I was the one he was thinking of and that you can get a Boehm to have a finger layout more in line with a simple system flute. The bottom line is that you’re not going to be able to cover the holes on a modern Boehm flute with your fingers unless you’re Israel Kamakawewo Ole’s brother. And I don’t know anyone who’d be willing to remove the keys from an $11,000 wooden Boehm flute to give it a whirl anyway. If you’re talking about an antique then I have no idea how big the holes are and if it would be feasible to cover them with your fingers.
Kirk
So Kirk,
If I were to send you a bottle of good whiskey and a student Boehm would you rig one up for me 
I must try this out. I may have questions when the time comes. Great idea. You should give us a few clips.
Plug all the holes. Flip it over. Drill new ones.
Pretty cool Kirk!
If the op is looking for a keyless Boehm wasnt’ there a David Swindler making them?
It’s not a bad alternative if you want an inexpensive keyed flute to mess around with and not cross-wire your brain on the fingering. I still use my Forbes Pratten most of the time at session and I have a Watson 6-key on order. In the mean time the “Badcliffe” comes in handy for the occasional Bear Island Reel or McElvogue E minor jig. 
Feel free to ask away if you decide to try converting one yourself. I might have to rack my brain on some of the details.
Cheers,
Kirk
I had one of David Swindler’s flutes, and I wouldn’t use the word "Boehm’ to describe it. It had a cylindrical body and a taper in the headjoint to compensate for intonation variations. The tone holes were like any other simple-system flute. My pvc flutes have a cylindrical body and a Tipple-Fajardo wedge in the headjoint(like a Boehm taper), but my flutes are in a category by themselves. I don’t make any comparison to Boehm flutes to describe how they play or sound.
okay maybe it should be called, Keyless diatonic simple system flute based on Boehm’s bore and headjoint then {if indeed that is what is happening in the headjoint instead of a wedge} . Terry Mcgee would call this model Boehm bore and I believe that is where David got his original plans as did the old makers making simple system they labeled them ’ eight keyed based on Boehm’s bore and design’ but is someone really looking for one of these or is this all theoretical.
I can’t believe no one has pointed out why a keyless Boehm is impossible.
it won’t work
simple reason: Boehm flutes operate on an pin+anxle system. Push one key down and two (or three) keys further away will close as well. It’s to make the tone perfect. Sort of like half-holing. You’d physically be unable to pull it off if you removed the keys.
That’s what made this a great thrill for Boehm, in that he was able to make full use of the instrument without limitation of the 10 fingers.
So your scale would be completely whacky if you leave only the six holes uncovered.
Not to mention one uglyyyyyyy flute with all the filled plugs, holes etc.
also…boehm flutes are based on a parabolic head and cylindrical body.
That is not really conducive – though it was tried and marketed – to the simple-system flute. There’s a reason the conoidal bore is the choice.
fwiw
dm
keyless Boehm
and that is a clear oxymoron.