After working on researching and taking notes and figuring out how to Google all summer, Tio did a complete paper on none other than (wait for it)...the flute. He started with no info or interest and wrote this with no hints. I think he's ready for the next year in school.
I'm a proud grampy so I'm posting it for anyone interested.
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The Modern Flute.
The flute has gone through many innovations over centuries. The first great innovation of the modern flute was by Theobald Boehm. What Boehm wanted to do was to make the flute louder and more accessible to the flute player. He designed a flute where you could press keys to change notes and these flutes were usually made of different metals, this meant that you could play faster and more clearer along with his success of making the flute louder and more accessible to the player . He studied acoustics with Carl Von Scafhautl at the University of Munich after doing his part in innovations to the flute and trying to improve the steel industry in Bavaria. The player that embraced the Boehm flute innovations was Emil Prill. Prill started a school that taught the Boehm flute, etudes, transcriptions and a guide to flute literature.
Louis Lot was the next innovator of the flute, but he made the Boehm flute better. He made the body of the flute tube thicker, enlarged the toneholes and made a bigger, more square embouchure. Lot also was the official supplier of Boehm flutes to the Paris Conservatoire on Louis Dorus's appointment as a flute professor in 1860. He also made the first gold flute in 1869. The players that embraced these innovations were Adolphe Hennebains, Marcel Moyse, Joseph Rampal and his son, Jean-Pierre Rampal. Adolph taught Moyse and Joseph Rampal about these innovations in the Boehm school of flutes. Marcel Moyse played the flute with the innovations added. Moyse was the first flutist in leading French orchestras. The Knight of the Legion of Honours were his students, Trevor Wye, Aitken, Bennett, Debost, Graf, Jaunet and Nicolet. Joseph Rampal restored the only gold flute that was made by Louis Lot himself. Jean-Pierre Rampal went on worldwide concerts and Poulenc and Jolivet dedicated their work to him. There is also a flute competition in Paris dedicated to him.
Then the American flute industry started with William and George Haynes and Verne Powell. The Haynes brothers started the first American flute company, Verne Powell worked for them. They established the silver Lot-pattern flute. When Haynes started mass producing flutes, Verne Powell left the Haynes flute company. He started his own flute company in Massachusetts as well. His flutes became very popular because every flute he made was handmade and custom.
The most recent important innovation to the flute was made by Albert Cooper. He cut the embouchure hole to change the timbre of the flute. He also developed a new note scale for the flute and is used universally today. A flute competition was also dedicated to him.