“Fancy Highfalutin Silver Type Flute”, could also be titled “We don’t need no stinking instructions!”
Over Christmas I was at a party, talking to the Hostess and told her I played Irish flute. So she disappears and returns with her Boehm flute and starts playing Christmas carols. Then she hands the flute to me and I can’t even make it sound. In embarrassment I had the flute back after about 20 seconds (seemed like an eternity).
Well not willing to let that Boehm flute get the best of me (Yamaha 265). I borrowed it the other day and re-attempted to play it. Well I could get the flute to sound after a minute or two (actually it is quite easy) and then thanks to the “open hole” hole keys I could figure out where to place my fingers. Well OK then also figuring that Boehm got the Bb key backwards (always open, two levers???) and you had to hold it shut with your thumb. Then I commenced to playing a jig… It came out sounding like “Arabian Nights”…WHAT THE!!! Actually I found this quite amusing and kept playing the jig for a while. OK, so then I figure out the flute plays Fnat. OK, so I slide my RH first finger up to the next key up to get F# (boy this is awkward and uncomfortable). Next it’s the Cnat, doesn’t work with crossfingering, oh so that’s what the 2 levers on the Bb key are for (careful only use the 2nd smaller lever). For a guy who can’t reach the Bb key on an Irish flute, all this thumb work is hard to get used to. So I play along for a while before my right hand goes into paralysis from shifting up to use that inconveniently located F# key (all the music I know has a F# almost exclusively for some reason ). So I experiment and find I can make an F# with my RH 3rd finger down… Now I can play some tunes.
Well I have to confess: the Boehm system is easier to sound, the intonation is better and the tones are more even. But flutes are like people… A perfect person is BORING! It is our quirks and idiosyncrasies that make us so gosh darn endearing!
I’ll continue to attempt to play the Boehm, but only on other musical venues (not ITM , doesn’t seem well suited – just doesn’t sound right!).
My wife is a Boehm player of 30-someodd years. We got her a fully-keyed wooden flute that didn’t work out. But recently she’s taken to the traverso somewhat (she has also played quite a bit of recorder, so not as much of a transition as it might be for some). She does the same thing as you – keeps the music distinct, never plays anything on the one flute that she does on the other.
When I picked up my flute I found that some songs sounded better while others just couldn’t be played. “O’Connell’s Lamentation” worked wonderfully but others like “Balquhidder Lasses” just never seems to work (that and I can never keep the fingering strait). It has not been a conscious decision, I just find that when I am about to play a tune my hand reaches to the instrument that belongs to that song.
Would you believe me if said that of all 'classical ’ woodwinds the Boehm flute is the easiest? Clarinet , oboe and bassoon have fingering systems that are far more complicated. It’s easy to see that Boehm ‘designed’ an instrument instead of ‘improving’ like his predecessors did.
AAAAAMEN. Imagine playing Beethoven on these simple-system pups; people did it all the time.
Boehm and the plateau key system were practically messianic; no wonder so many 19th-century simple system flutes went to the junk shops, charities, and things like Irish flute bands.
I’ll confess to using the RH2 for F#. But I wasn’t sure if I was being lazy (makes trasitions to E much faster) or I was afraid it was my ears being used to flat F#'s!
To put this matter into perspective: In school I played trumpet, because I was so incredibly coordinated, 3 buttons was the most I figured I could handle. Washed out of piano lessons at about age 6, when they tried to make me use my left hand.
Good discovery; that’s exactly what the RH2 F# is for … those funny little repeated EF#GA AGF#E passages classical composers seem to give the flutes to suggest wind or waving reeds or whirling clouds or something.
Anothr fun trick: the trill keys are your friends. From trilling C nats & C#s to venting high A (A3) with good old RH2 (again!), they’re handy little devils.
Have fun. Despite what folks may think, Boehm flutes don’t necessarily drive themselves, and they too can be fun to figure out. Shoot, some people spend lifetimes at it!
The oboe fingers about the same but the double reed is a ???“” -weeell you know. keep working on that nasty thing and you will be suprised what you can get out of it once you get the hang of it. Most ITM are fiddle tunes and they roll real easy off the D flute. A little more skill is needed to get them to speed from a silver but it can be done. AND once you have it you can play anything in any key. I play and love them both. Pull out the poor old fiddle and my family and dogs hide under the bed. That 265 is a student instrument and probably has the ofset G. You will need to find one inline to be comfortable after years of D.
I borrowed it the other day and re-attempted to play it. Well I could get the flute to sound after a minute or two (actually it is quite easy) and then thanks to the “open hole” hole keys I could figure out where to place my fingers. Well OK then also figuring that Boehm got the Bb key backwards (always open, two levers???) and you had to hold it shut with your thumb. Then I commenced to playing a jig… It came out sounding like “Arabian Nights”…WHAT THE!!! Actually I found this quite amusing and kept playing the jig for a while. 
OK, so then I figure out the flute plays Fnat. OK, so I slide my RH first finger up to the next key up to get F# (boy this is awkward and uncomfortable). Next it’s the Cnat, doesn’t work with crossfingering, oh so that’s what the 2 levers on the Bb key are for (careful only use the 2nd smaller lever). For a guy who can’t reach the Bb key on an Irish flute, all this thumb work is hard to get used to. So I play along for a while before my right hand goes into paralysis from shifting up to use that inconveniently located F# key (all the music I know has a F# almost exclusively for some reason 
