Theobald Boehm

[2] Born in Munich in the Electorate of Bavaria in the family of goldsmith Carl Friedrich Böhm and Anna Franziska, née Sulzbacher, daughter of a court haberdasher.

After studying acoustics at the University of Munich, he began experimenting on improving the flute in 1832, first patenting his new fingering system in 1847.

Traditional flutes were limited in size because the player had to be able to reach all the tone holes in the span of two hands.

Boehm was very fond of the alto flute, and recounts a time he was playing it when someone mistook it for a French horn.

Klosé invented a system for the clarinet that today is the standard nearly worldwide (except Austria, Germany and others).