Talk:Boehm System

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(I don't know about the oboe or other double reed instruments, since I don't play any of these)

[edit] Plain Boehm vs. Full Boehm

Straining my memory here, hoping someone can help me with the differences between the Plain Boehm system and the Full Boehm system for the B-flat clarinet.

Plain Boehm: 5 ringed fingerholes and ringed thumbhole. (#3 on left hand has no ring.) Preferred by the vast majority of orchestral clarinet players other than in Italy (where the Full Boehm is widely used) and in Germany and Austria (where non-Boehm instruments are preferred).

Full Boehm: 6 ringed fingerholes and ringed thumbhole. Left-hand key for a low E-flat. Forked Bb/Eb mechanism. Articulated G#/C# mechanism. In some cases, an extra key between #1 & #2 on right hand to operate the G#/C#. Popular in Italy, and among some jazz musicians, because of its greater facility in remote keys, but no longer offered by most major manufacturers.

[edit] Questionable

I removed the following one and a half paragraphs (leaving, unfortunately, one half) because I believe most of what's stated in them is either wrong or confusing. My comments are in bracketed italics.

It replaces the older Albert system, [It does no such thing. First, the Albert system is a more recent development than the Boehm, though based on earlier systems. Second, while the Albert system certainly is less frequently encountered than the Boehm and is basically never used by classical performers, it still is the system of choice for most pre-swing jazz and Dixieland players and many folk clarinet players. In addition, if we're mentioning Albert, we should probably also mention the related Oehler system which is nearly ubiquitous among German concert clarinetists.] and is known predominantly for simplifying the progression of fingerings as one moves up and down the scale. The idea is that one should be able to start at the bottom of the scale by putting all keys down, then move up the major scale one note at a time by simply lifting one finger at a time. [I believe this misses the point, and that this is a feature of most woodwind keywork systems including the Boehm's predecessors.] In reality, of course, this is only partially realized. The saxophone probably comes closest to the ideal, having fewer irregular fingerings than the clarinet; [This is a strange comment. What's an "irregular fingering"? In fact, by lifting one finger at a time one does indeed get a major scale on a Boehm system clarinet.] and a true octave key, which neither the clarinet nor the flute possesses. [A clarinet doesn't have an "octave key" because a stopped cylindrical pipe overblows at the twelfth, not the octave. It does have a "register key". The fact that it isn't an octave key is due to the acoustics of the instrument, not some defect of the keywork.]

The bassoon (and contra-bassoon) are unique members of the woodwind family in that they are both fingered with Heckel-system keywork, a descendant of the original Baroque fingering system, as opposed to the otherwise ubiquitous Boehm system. [Not so, at least to my knowledge: I believe the oboe (and related instruments) uses a non Boehm system.]

- Rsholmes 03:13, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Material removed

I removed the following paragraphs:

During the early 1800's, others applied the fundamentals of the Boehm "system" to the clarinet. Hyacinthe Klose took the standard soprano clarinet pitched in Bb, adapted the ring and axle keywork system to correct serious intonation issues on both the upper and lower joints of the instrument, and added duplicate keys for the left hand and right hand little fingers to simplify several difficult articulations throughout the range of the instrument. Beginning in the 1830's, the Klose-Boehm clarinet started displacing the simple system clarinet and its derivatives, dating back to the turn of the century. By the early 1900's, virtually all clarinets used by performers outside of Germany, Austria, and Russia were of the Boehm system or one of its derivatives.

Removed because: this belongs really in the Boehm system (clarinet) article, with corrections (the dates are wrong). I'll do that.

At roughly the same time, Adolphe Sax took the innovations offered by the Boehm system of keywork and applied them to the body of a bugle provided with a clarinet mouthpiece. By doing so, he created the family of instruments called saxophone, often described as being a hybrid of the woodwind and brass families. Starting with a bass saxophone pitched in C, he rapidly expanded the family to include members ranging from the sopranino in Eb to the contrabass in Eb.

Removed because: I'd like to see some verification that Sax was using the Boehm system as a starting point. Sax developed the saxophone within about eight years after Boehm's early conical flute and nearly as many years before Boehm's final cylindrical flute, and while he almost certainly was familiar with Boehm's work, I don't think he was trying to replicate it for the sax. (Note that Sax also designed improved clarinet family instruments, but did not give them a fully Boehm style key system.) Also, some of this is nonsense: a saxophone is not a hybrid of woodwind and brass families, though there is a story that Sax started with a clarinet mouthpiece attached to an ophicleide. Also, this is more about the development of the saxophone than about the Boehm system. Likewise, I removed the reference to the sax in the first paragraph -- again, I'd like to see some verification of this. I can't recall having seen knowledgeable people refer to the sax key system as a "Boehm system", though I'm entirely willing to be proved wrong.

Through the Boehm system of interconnections between finger locations and tone hole placement, Sax enabled the operation of huge toneholes located along the lengthy body of the instruments. While his original intent was to provide a family of instruments suitable for both wind band and orchestral use, saxophones are largely restricted to pop and jazz music.

Removed because: This really is about saxophones and not Boehm key systems.

-- Rsholmes 04:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)