Boehm style in PVC?

[Darren]

I just gave a friend one of my PVP flutes. She is a Boehm-system flute player and asked it would be possible to make one that is more like that.

Obviously, I am not about to start adding keys to my pvp flutes but are there a couple other holes I could add? I really don't know much about Boehm flutes.

Would adding a Cnat hole for the left thumb be enough, or is she more likely looking for a right hand pinky C?

If either of these are doable how would I calc the positioning?

[fearfaoin]

Boehm is a pretty complicated system of keys, and it is that way because
we don't have enough fingers to cover all the holes that the keys do. The
point of the simple system flute is that it uses the simple system. I don't
know what she wants when she asks for a Boehm version...

[Darren]

Me neither...that's why I asked here.

I will ask her what she specifically wants.

[Denny]

thumb hole makes sense

you could ask her if she is comfortable with an open G# (left pinky)
you can do the same thing for Eb

after that it isn't worth the bother

do go to Skip Healy's site and look at his 10 hole chromatic
http://www.skiphealy.com/keylessflute_chromatic

[talasiga]

denny I have not been able to work out how a mere 10 tone holes can obtain 12 semitones without any cross fingerings.

[Doug_Tipple]

Would adding a Cnat hole for the left thumb be enough, or is she more likely looking for a right hand pinky C?

If either of these are doable how would I calc the positioning?

Darren, you can easily make a C natural thumb hole. As long as your first two finger holes are the same size, you can make a C nat thumb hole by locating the hole exactly halfway between the two holes with the same diameter as the first two holes. Where you locate this hole on the bottom/side of the flute is a matter of choice.

[Darren]

Thanks for the info guys. I am going to ask her if it is simply a thumb hole she is looking for.

Doug, thanks for the detail. Indeed, my top 2 holes are the same size (3/8"), so I will give this a go. Am I aiming to make this again about the same size?

It actually seems like regular fingering for the Cnat is not exactly difficult, but I can see coming from a silver flute where it is enough to throw some off.

I will give it a try simply because testing and playing around with designs is fun.

[Denny]

denny I have not been able to work out how a mere 10 tone holes can obtain 12 semitones without any cross fingerings.

me too....at least the Bb without cross fingering, I'm okay with the rest of it.

I seem to remember seeing a fingering chart once, but it was many years ago and I can't find it on the site now.

[Doug_Tipple]

Darren, perhaps you should look at the Yamaha Fife. It has seven finger holes and a thumb hole. It fingers close to a concert silver flute, and, thus, is a good instrument for children prior to picking up the much larger concert flute. A fingerchart is given at the website.

Although the Yamaha fife has a conical bore, if you were in the mind to do it, I think that you could make a similar flute in low D. Not having any online flute calculators for this flute, you would have to do it by trial and error. I don't think that it would take too many prototypes before you would have it solved.

[ChrisCracknell]

I haven't seen one of Skip Healy's 10 hole flutes, but as far as I can work out (experimenting with making a ten hole whistle...), the C Natural still needs to be cross fingered - the left thumb is used for the Bflat. Does anyone have one?

Chris.

[Denny]

ah, that makes more sense!

[Darren]

Thanks for the tip Doug. Makes this look like it might be doable.

My big concern in looking at this is how massive will the stretch be for a D flute? The Yamaha looks like the holes are spaced about the same as a regular fife but once you apply that to a D flute it is going to be a massive stretch, I think. I am already using my right pinky for the bottom hole as the stretch between my 2nd and 3rd finger is pretty short.

Hmmm...I wonder if my friend could just learn the Irish flute fingering.

[Doug_Tipple]

Hmmm...I wonder if my friend could just learn the Irish flute fingering.

There you go.

[jemtheflute]

FWIW, having a C thumb-hole will go a good way towards mollifying a recidivist Boehm player, but their other baulking-pointis the R1 F# - and there is really nowt you can do about that without adopting a more recorder type fingering/tone-hole strategy - which they probably won't like either. A Boehm-only-hitherto fluter will also find the necessity of (to them, fairly extreme) lipping in of notes on an all-cylinder flute like yours quite a challenge/off-putting. Actually, the big hurdle mentally for them is usually getting away from a C centric mindset and understanding that even a Boehm flute is really still "in D" to a significant extent. Give 'em a C whistle or flute and some D or G music to play and let 'em go figure........ Once they crack that correlation, it is really only the two main fingering differences with the F/F# and C nat/B areas that they have to get used to. I know - I can remember (just! ) .......

[talasiga]

I haven't seen one of Skip Healy's 10 hole flutes, but as far as I can work out (experimenting with making a ten hole whistle...), the C Natural still needs to be cross fingered - the left thumb is used for the Bflat.
.......

That's exactly what I would have thought had it not been for

How would you like to get a wooden flute that offers a fully chromatic range but with no cross-fingering, half-holing, or keys? You get just that with our keyless chromatic 10-hole flute.
........