how many are (ex) Boehm players?

tin tin · Post by **tin tin** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:14 pm

Time to open the closet!
Just curious, how many here converted from Boehm flutes and classical music to wooden flutes and Irish music? (I know you're out there...I've seen the word Mateki and other Boehmish references in other posts!)
What was the impetus, and what has been most satisfying for you about the switch?

I played classical music (and some rock and jazz) on the Boehm flute for a total of about 15 years. I first heard a wooden flute (a Baroque one) in concert about 11 years ago, and it totally rocked my world. A Chris Norman concert about 5 years ago gave me another shove towards simple system flutes and traditional music. (I started playing whistle about that time.)
I made the full switch about three years ago and haven't looked back.

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:55 pm

Yeah, I started on Boehm-system flute, and still play it from time to time.

In college I started playing recorder and then traverso with an early music consort. That started getting me hooked on wooden flute a bit; after a couple of years as a music major I decided I'd be happier if I never ever played another note on anything again, and laid them all down, for years.

Years later, having barely played a note on anything in the interim, I wound up with an old German 8-key, and started looking for simple tunes online to play on it just for my own pleasure.

Many of the tunes I found were Irish trad, and even though I wasn't familiar with Irish trad, I was struck by the medodies and the way they were put together.

I was playing them (very badly, but I had no standard of reference at the time), and loving it.

Then I was given a copy of a Chieftains album, the one where Matt Molloy does his incredible ride on the Mason's Apron.

I was stunned by the aggressive style and strong rhythm of his playing. I couldn't duplicate it, of course, but it wasn't from a lack of listening to it, over and over again.

There were three things I was just really taken by: first, his tone. That was my first goal, to be able to produce that strong, resonant sound. Second, the sheer aggression in his playing was just stunning. There was nothing elegant and not much melodic about this kind of flute playing: it was pure balls-to-the-wall and reminded me of the trumpet players in the college marching band. It had attitude.

Finally, at the cadences, he was doing something that was fooling my ear. No matter how many times I listened to it, I couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing to make a "doodle-de-dum". I had seen many fingering charts for many kinds of flutes through the years but had never encountered a fingering for a doodle-de-dum!

I bought books and started trying to learn by myself to play Irish flute music, and started a session, where, unfortunately, I was the only melody player.

Then Scoiltrad came around and I took some lessons and started learning everything over as up until then I was doing nothing at all right.

Then I was laid off from my job and had to move to find work. There were Irish sessions where I moved to, and things started to all click together a little better.

It's still a work in progress. Somewhere along the way a hobby became an obsession became a way of life.

My real wish now is to be able to take real lessons, person-to-person, someday, from a good teacher.

So that's my story, very briefly summarized.

--James

Bart Wijnen · Post by **Bart Wijnen** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:01 pm

Kuifje, please close the closet ASAP!

I started with the Boehm flute in 1969. My parents had some ITM (McPeaks) albums, I liked that music so much, but - in those days - you had to play classical music (btw, there's more frustration on this forum, look under LeJeune if you want to know about vegetables).

I tried to play ITM on the Boehm flute, it can be done but I couldn't. Once an old man gave me a simple system flute I was totally sold.

Still have my old Muramatsu workhorse for - indeed - my work, but the passion lies elsewhere: a tube with six holes.

Bart

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:30 pm

I played wooden simple system first, Boehm hardly at all.
Rented one a few months ago just to see what these
were like.

I think people who studied classical flute definitely
have an advantage in ITM. Chop-wise. Folks
I know who came to simple system from
Boehm have the chops, especially the agility.

Aanvil · Post by **Aanvil** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:44 pm

Not sure I can count myself as an "Ex" Bohem player... I still have one, and I can still play it.

Do I need to have hypnosis or something so I can forget?

Cathy Wilde · Post by **Cathy Wilde** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:48 pm

Boehm from 4th grade thru college (music scholarship, then dropped out for the lucrative field of journalism

); weddings and community orchestras/church ensembles thereafter (and sometimes still).

Went to Ireland and heard nothing but accordions on the radio, but bought a Feadog for fun. Almost made my mother hit a cow while tootling in the car; the woman who'd bugged me for years to practice was now begging me to stop playing. Obediently put the tinwhistle down for a few years.

Then one day during lunch at our ad agency, two art directors were playing O'Carolan tunes on hammered dulcimer and guitar. I said "hey! When I was in Ireland ...?"

The rest is a long, slow, decline.

I don't know how much you can measure the Boehm-start vs. simple- system-start thing .... for me I feel the real handicaps are age and ear. If I could change anything, I'd be 5 again and learning to play this music like the kids in Ireland do.

gian marco · Post by **gian marco** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:17 pm

I've played jazz for about 15 years on the silver flute and the soprano sax.

rama · Post by **rama** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:18 pm

Cathy Wilde wrote:Boehm from 4th grade thru college (music scholarship, then dropped out for the lucrative field of journalism ); weddings and community orchestras/church ensembles thereafter (and sometimes still).

Went to Ireland and heard nothing but accordions on the radio, but bought a Feadog for fun. Almost made my mother hit a cow while tootling in the car; the woman who'd bugged me for years to practice was now begging me to stop playing. Obediently put the tinwhistle down for a few years.

Then one day during lunch at our ad agency, two art directors were playing O'Carolan tunes on hammered dulcimer and guitar. I said "hey! When I was in Ireland ...?"

The rest is a long, slow, decline.

I don't know how much you can measure the Boehm-start vs. simple- system-start thing .... for me I feel the real handicaps are age and ear. If I could change anything, I'd be 5 again and learning to play this music like the kids in Ireland do.

*poof*! you are now five!

Cathy Wilde · Post by **Cathy Wilde** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:25 pm

Thank you, O Great One! Want some of my leftover Halloween candy after recess!!!!???

Denny · Post by **Denny** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:41 pm

withak · Post by **withak** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 5:39 pm

I played Boehm flute all through school, then I stopped and played banjo (lol) for 10 years, then decided to try one of the funny-looking flutes with no keys.

flutey1 · Post by **flutey1** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 5:52 pm

I decided in kindergarten that I wanted to play flute. played boehm flute 1st grade all through high school, and for a long time thought I would be a music major because music was pretty much my life. then I discovered irish music and decided that music could still be my life and it didn't have to be classical music. (best idea ever, btw). parents wouldn't let me go to university in Ireland, so the next best thing being Boston, here I am

no regrets whatsoever. ITM is infinitely more fun than classical.

cheers,
Sara

Jennie · Post by **Jennie** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 6:35 pm

I could've been one of those with The Chops! When I was recruited for band in fourth grade, and my band teacher asked what I wanted to play, I said, "Clarinet or flute, I guess." That was what all the girls played.

He said, "Clarinet, then, there are too many flutes already."

So now I'm looking back and thinking I could've had thirty-some years of embouchure practice. Darn!

Jennie

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 7:20 pm

As I've mentioned elsewhere, when I was 12 my orthodontist said that
flute playing would shrivel my upper lip and make me
look like a rabbit. I really wanted to play the flute
but I didn't want to look like a rabbit.

I didnt' start playing flute till I was sixty.

If the fellow wasn't almost certainly passed on by now,
I'd have him whacked.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:10 pm

When I was in grade school, I wanted to learn a band instrument so that I could play in the school band. My family already had a cornet and a flute that had been kept in the attic for many years. My brother got the cornet, and I got the flute. I wasn't successful trying to learn to play the flute on that old instrument. I was having to blow so hard that I was dizzy every time that I played. I gave up the flute, thinking that I just wasn't cut out to be a flute player. I didn't know then that what I really needed was a decent flute.

One of the good things about being over sixty is that you have earned the right to tell the same story over and over again.

It wasn't until much later in life that I came back to the flute, this time with more music experience. Now I enjoy playing recorders, silver Boehm flutes, and simple system flutes, and I never have had a problem with getting dizzy while playing a flute. I had wanted a silver alto flute for many years, but the price was the main obstacle. In my affluent retirement years and with help from the presence of lower-cost instruments on the world marketplace, I now enjoy playing the alto flute. Tonight I played, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Cha Cha Cha."