And don¡¯t forget our longtime old friend Brian in Africa, who signed his posts with O¡¯pengis! Miss that old guy!
On Sun, Jul 30, 2023 at 1:57 PM Keith Pettway <
keith@...> wrote:
Hello Folks - here is a brief background on the open G#. When Boehm
redesigned the flute in 1847, he wanted an open G#, not closed. The
closed G# caused many problems (especially on E3) that do not happen
with an open G#. So what happened that caused 99% of modern "Boehm"
system flutes to use closed G#? The bottom line - MONEY. The old system
flutes used a closed G3, and the players that had learned on the old
system flutes were reluctant to relearn fingering. Makers of the modern
Boehm flutes could sell more flutes if they had a closed G3 so...
There are not many flutists left that use open G# flutes. My mentor, and
friend William Bennett (WIBB), who left this earth a year ago May, was
one of the last (at least one of the last I know of) to totally use the
open G#. All of the flutes he performed on were either original open G#,
or he had them converted to open G#. I always was honored but quit
panicked when he shoved one of his flutes toward me with the words
"here, try this flute". I knew what to do, but it really scrambled my
brain to do it!
Cheers!
Papa Smurf/Keith
-- Composed on my touchscreen device. Please excuse typos.
AliceFlute