Chiff and Fipple Forums

[[ Deleted double posting — it's very hot here and the keyboard is sticky ]]

Steve

Was there an Irish musical contingent in or around NYC in the mid-1800s (or in contact via catalogue purchases) which might have been a market for the Firth-Hall-Pond, E. Riley, Asa Hopkins, Jabez Camp makers/sellers? (And the input from paddler and conical bore is much appreciated.)

Take into consideration the big wave of mid 19th century migrants from Ireland will have been forced out by the Famine. Overall not a group with much spending power. The cost of new flutes will have been prohibitive to most at that time. Also, popularity and spread of flutes and fluteplaying (in Irish music) is perhaps more associated with the (very) late 1800s.

I could be wrong, but I always imagined that the wooden flute was one of the later additions to the arsenal of the Irish Traditional Musician. The fine 8 key flutes made in the New York area that many members on this board so highly regard were produced in earlier and middle parts of the 19th Century, before the time period that many attribute to the arrival of the simple system flute in the Irish tradition.
As a theoretical suggestion, perhaps the arrival of large quantities of mass produced German pin mounted flutes, in the last quarter of the 19th Century, were possibly the first examples that some of the Irish musicians in America may have been able to afford.

Uni Flute wrote:I could be wrong, but I always imagined that the wooden flute was one of the later additions to the arsenal of the Irish Traditional Musician. The fine 8 key flutes made in the New York area that many members on this board so highly regard were produced in earlier and middle parts of the 19th Century, before the time period that many attribute to the arrival of the simple system flute in the Irish tradition.
As a theoretical suggestion, perhaps the arrival of large quantities of mass produced German pin mounted flutes, in the last quarter of the 19th Century, were possibly the first examples that some of the Irish musicians in America may have been able to afford.

... or, as a theory that I think I remember reading somewhere ... 8-key English flutes were dumped in the market when they became obsolete due to the popularity of the new Boehm system from the 1840s on.

benhall.1 wrote:

Uni Flute wrote:I could be wrong, but I always imagined that the wooden flute was one of the later additions to the arsenal of the Irish Traditional Musician. The fine 8 key flutes made in the New York area that many members on this board so highly regard were produced in earlier and middle parts of the 19th Century, before the time period that many attribute to the arrival of the simple system flute in the Irish tradition.
As a theoretical suggestion, perhaps the arrival of large quantities of mass produced German pin mounted flutes, in the last quarter of the 19th Century, were possibly the first examples that some of the Irish musicians in America may have been able to afford.

... or, as a theory that I think I remember reading somewhere ... 8-key English flutes were dumped in the market when they became obsolete due to the popularity of the new Boehm system from the 1840s on.

That is the primary reason given for the eventual rejection of the simple system flute from classical music. The arrival of the mass-produced German "Nach Meyer" flutes possibly compounded this. Their effect on the reputation of the simple system flute as a design was quite possibly very detrimental, and may have also affected pricing of non German simple system flutes in the used market, such as English and American built ones. Of course, this is my own personal speculation