Five Flutes | Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the most frequently used material for flutes,
oboes, and clarinets was boxwood stained with nitric acid. This example from late in the second
quarter of the century is by Louis Michel François Chabrier de Peloubet,
the principal member of a French immigrant family of wind instrument (and later reed organ) makers
working in New York and New Jersey. This instrument could best be termed a "band flute," in that it
is pitched in a flat key for use in military or community bands playing repertoire written mostly in
flat keys. Except for the trombones and usual bass instruments serving bands of the period, nearly
every other instrumental part was transposed for instruments built in flat keys to simplify key
signatures, fingerings, and tuning. The player using this E-flat flute for music in B-flat major
(two flats), for example, would see his part written in G major (one sharp), a very convenient key
for flutes of this type. The part might also have been designated "Flute in F," and the player might
have considered this E-flat instrument to be in F. It was once a common practice to name flutes one
tone above their actual key. See "Flute Misnomers."
Five Flutes | Dayton C. Miller Flute Collection
