Story of the Flute
on the proper positions of the holes, their size, the shape and position of the mouth-hole, the material ofBöhm's
Flute of
1847 the instrument, etc., he produced his cylinder flute with parabolic head-joint. He thus restored the old cylinder bore for the body of the instrument, but fitted it with a head-joint, the inside of which curved slightly at the closed end—a plan which he had already tried unsuccessfully thirty years before. To enter into the details of this very decided improvement would be out of place; suffice it to say that it greatly improved the tone and carrying power of the flute (especially of the lower notes), whilst making it easier to sound, and rendering the high notes better in tune. In this flute Böhm adopted certain improvements in the mechanism which had been already used by Coche; and as the holes were too large for the fingers to cover them, he fitted them all with keys. Bohm's newest system was at first violently opposed by Clinton (who went so far as to say that if the cylinder be right. Nature herself must be wrong) and others, but it is now, with certain modifications, universally adopted for all good modern flutes.
56
