I play a Pratten flute with oval embouchure and also own a Gemeinhardt silver flute. I’m not too fond about the Boehm embouchure, not because of the sound but because of playability - I like the old-fashioned oval style embouchure cut better. Another point is that I can’t get the Pratten embouchure right instantly after playing the Boehm for a while. So are there any makers of wooden (or metal, I don’t mind) headjoints for Boehm flutes that offer an oval embouchure cut like on the old flutes?
If you truly dig the old-style headjoints, these might especially appeal to you: http://www.headjoints.com/
I’ve not had the chance to try one, but I’ve spoken with some very good players who rave about them.
To add to the names Jack mentioned, Abell offers an oval cut, as does Bob Ogren. And closer to home, so does Thomas Fehr: http://www.floetenbau.ch/bk.html
I once had a high pitch Rudall Carte & Co. Boehm flute (that had been ill-advisedly “doctored” down to A=440 with predictable scale distortion). When I parted with it in part-exchange for my R&R, Paul Davis said he could probably find a home for the head of the RC&Co (the body effectively being junk) with someone who wanted a wooden head for a modern metal flute (which was going through one of its “in fashion” phases in the mid 1980s). I never found out if he did so, but…
The point is, with suitable adaptations to the top end of the body of a metal flute, it can relatively easily be made to fit into the “French” style female slide on a typical antique wooden Boehm head. There have been quite a few RC&Co High Pitch Boehm flutes on eBay just lately. They all have the classic Rudall elliptical embouchure. You could probably acquire one for a similar cost to a bespoke modern wooden head, even including the cost of adapting the top of the body of your metal flute. Such an adaptation would not affect the wooden flute, so although you wouldn’t normally be using the HP body, you could still reunite it with its head. However, you would be making quite a serious and permanent change to your metal flute that would probably preclude use with its own head and would certainly be obviously visible when not inserted into the wooden head. Not an unprecedented thing to do, though.
There’s this anonymous wooden Boehm on eBay currently, though I can’t make out the embouchure on it even with manipulating the photos. Might be worth an enquiry? Could even be at A=440, as vendor knows little - ask for sounding length too. The broken lower body tenon, whilst a do-able repair, makes this flute not really worth salvaging (unless closer inspection argued otherwise), unlikely to sell for much and eminently suitable for cannibalisation!
You can also find (often quite cheaply) assorted hybrid late C19th systems with Boehm heads and cylinder bodies but with all kinds of key/fingering systems. They may be HP (more likely if English) or not, and the head may or may not be suitably proportioned to be adapted to a modern metal body. Here’s a recent eBay example (probably still available from the regular dealer who listed it…). Nice head and good embouchure!
I don’t believe (though I am not certain about this) that the scaling of the “Boehm’s parabola” in the head is significantly different between HP and modern pitch flutes - the main differences come in the body length and tone-hole dispositions. There should not therefore be significant intonation problems arising from that factor.
if you play a cheap boehm flute, it will not play well. they are ok, but a $1,000 boehm flute does not play anywhere near as well as a $1,000 irish flute. if you play a $10,000 boehm flute, you might think different.
that being said, i have a dave copley, wooden headjoint for my silver flute (in my avatar). here is an old sound clip of me playing the rakes of mallow, based on a clare version played by bernard o’sullivan and tommy mcmahon. the headjoint can also play very classical, as well. it has a huge range of tone colours possible.
here is a picture of the embouchure (it is in the middle), next to a modern silver flute headjoint and an antique, nicholson copy:
as you can see, the oval is round, and pretty traditional. dave copley makes a great irish flute, if you are not familiar with him. my headjoint is actually the first silver flute head joint he has ever made.
that all being said, if you dont know how to make a silver flute sound like a wooden flute, no headjoint in the world can do it for you.
Oh, I can make the flute sound just like I want it to sound (within certain limits of course, I’m not a trained boehm fluter). But the headjoint of my Boehm flute doesn’t take the focused and strong embouchure I use for my Pratten, so when playing the Pratten afterwards, the embouchure doesn’t work right, especially when I played the boehm for a longer time. Must be the memory effect of the muscles…
A funny thing is - the heajoint of my Pratten fits the boehm flute just perfect, the tube has exactly the right diameter - but it doesn’t work, probably due to the lack of the parabola.
Thanks so far for all the suggestions, I’ll look into that. I don’t think that I’ll go for an antique to rip the headjoint off - I’d rather play the antique as it is and get a new headjoint
Although Boehm himself did speak of a parabola, in regard to the shape of the head joint, in reality it appears that his head joint did not actually have a parabolic shape, but more of a plain taper.
About forty years ago, a guy by the name of Fajardo developed a tapered wedge, which fits into a cylindrical head joint, to adapt a cylindrical head joint to a Boehm flute body.
Today, our own Doug Tipple, of C&F fame, supplies a version of the Fajardo wedge, for his own cylindrical PVC tube flutes. I’d suggest sending a PM to him, and telling him of your situation. A tapered wedge isn’t difficult to fabricate, and he might be able to give you some advise. Who knows, but perhaps your wood head joint could work with the addition of a simple tapered wedge.
[quote=“Tintin”]
If you truly dig the old-style headjoints, these might especially appeal to you: > http://www.headjoints.com/
I’ve not had the chance to try one, but I’ve spoken with some very good players who rave about them.
[/quote]
These headjoints are a very interesting combination of the old Lot and Boehm designs and the requirements of the headjoint taper for a modern scale flute. Kathy and Ardal are fine flutemakers, and I have played on their baroque and classical flutes for many years. I’ve tried both of these headjoint styles, and find the Lot style much more playable. It is my understanding that they sell many more of the Lot model than the Boehm.
That said (warning: shameless promotion ahead…) I own one of their Lot heads in grenadilla. Since I no longer own the flute I was using it with, I would part with it if anyone is interested.
well, the boehm flute is another beast. the embouchure is very different. however, after a while, you can switch back and forth between them. if its a good silver flute, it should take the strong and focused embouchure. however, sad to say, the student, step-up and intermediate models probably just wont cut it, and will resist a “strong and focused” embouchure that would work on a pratten.
Out of curiosity, any chance of a pic? What style embouchure has the Lot? Classic French ellipse similar to English C19th? Boehm, of course, although he favoured a fairly severe rectangle with rounded corners, actually made quite a variety of embouchure cuts, both experimantally and in response to customer demand. What differences apart from embouchure cut are there between the Lot and Boehm style heads? Are the proportions of the taper different? (Cooper and other C20th tinkerers have also modified the actual curve without fundamentally moving away from Boehm’s prescription or producing anything other than very subjective and small-scale “improvements”, as I understand it.)
BTW, responding to a previous post up-thread, Boehm’s head design curve, whilst not a true parabola (he never claimed it was) is a curve that resembles a section (stopping well short of the apex) of the curve of an appropriately defined parabola in the sense that its curvature increases proportionally to distance from the starting point according to a formula similar to one for a parabola, though the opposite sides of a headjoint, whilst symmetrically identical curves, are not able to form parts of the same parabola as they are too close together/the apex is truncated. (The actual maths is waaaayyyy beyond me, but I understand the concept/can visualise the geometry!). It is not a straight taper nor a stepped one. A perusal of the diagrams in his Treatise will show that. I can’t go look up his wording as my copy of the Treatise is lent out, but I seem to recall it being close to my pseudo-paraphrase above. “Paraboloid” might be a better modern neologism for it than “parabolic”, though the latter has always been capable of meaning “like to/similar in nature to a parabola” as well as “of/pertaining to a (true) parabola”.
Jem, if you go to their site (http://www.headjoints.com/ ) and follow the link to the Lot page, you’ll find a better pic than I can make, plus other specs. During the time that I was using their Lot style head (on a .014" wall, silver FMG flute with a Cooper scale) I also owned a very fine blackwood Lot of similar design to the flute they mention as the model for the head. The family resemblance was definitely recognizable in sound and feel, but clearly the two heads were driving very different bodies. I understand from the makers that the headjoint taper is of a more modern design, necessary to work with later scales.
The most noticeable difference is the much shorter riser, which while perhaps driving the flute less robustly also makes the flute feel quicker and more responsive. It reminds me of the fact that Nicholson, who apparently had volume to burn, actually preferred his heads thinned at the embouchure, making a lower riser, apparently to improve the responsiveness of the flute.
Just how loud the FC Lot model is compared to a modern wood head is hard to judge. The sound seems somewhat more compact, but overall projection is a complex question. Anyone who moves between modern Boehm and 19thC style flutes for ITM would be very familiar with the type of difference in feel and response.
I also owned a thick wall grenadilla FMG flute with a Cooper scale body but a “Rudall Carte” style head which seemed to be a carry over from FMG’s roots at RC. The head, made in the '60s, had no lip plate, a large oval embouchure, and was fully lined with silver. It is a very big sounding flute, now in the hands of an exceptionally talented young women studying in the Netherlands.
I have L Lot flute #8xxx, tentatively dated to the 1920’s, which has a rounded rectangle embouchure, quite similar to a modern flute, and which does not appear to have been re-cut, or modified. It is also similar to a few other flutes I have of that era.
Although I offhand don’t remember the source(s) of such information, I was recalling a factoid I gathered a few decades ago, and it was a matter of some controversy. For instance, the immediate reference was to a parabolic shape, but that was refuted, yet it was also agreed that the shape of Boehm’s head joint wasn’t a straight taper, either. So, I was left with the impression that the shape was somewhere between a parabola and a straight taper, and I left it at that.
Let me add, that such reference to a parabola never again appeared in any of my other studies of the flute, just that once.
