Different Flutes, and whether one is better than another Options

[Alicia Ocean]

I have four flutes. (Not counting my Baroque flute)

I got them all out and compared them. There really isn't much difference. They all sound nice. One is a little more plumy. One is easier to play quickly between octaves from low to high. One has a bit more rattle on the key work.

The range in price (new price) goes from an 80 pounds (including postage) Made-in-China brand to a Yamaha 311 with zirconium stopper at 1000 pounds.

I'm concluding that there isn't a lot of difference between flutes until you get to professional level. The one that has the plumy sound and is the second easiest to quickly flick between octaves is the cheapest one. I guess that the price tag mattered more in the past. Perhaps enterprising people in China buy a really good flute and then copy it's best features producing a fantastic product at a crazy price. I suspect my 311 only beats it by having the zirconium stopper.

I often see threads on here along the lines of "Daughter has passed grade 5 and so now we need to get a better flute" and I wonder if perhaps they should just get the existing one serviced and have the child do more tone exercises...

I still recommend Yamaha 211s though because they are easy to sell on eBay.

[vave]

I have four flutes. (Not counting my Baroque flute)

I got them all out and compared them. There really isn't much difference. They all sound nice. One is a little more plumy. One is easier to play quickly between octaves from low to high. One has a bit more rattle on the key work.

The range in price (new price) goes from an 80 pounds (including postage) Made-in-China brand to a Yamaha 311 with zirconium stopper at 1000 pounds.

I'm concluding that there isn't a lot of difference between flutes until you get to professional level. The one that has the plumy sound and is the second easiest to quickly flick between octaves is the cheapest one. I guess that the price tag mattered more in the past. Perhaps enterprising people in China buy a really good flute and then copy it's best features producing a fantastic product at a crazy price. I suspect my 311 only beats it by having the zirconium stopper.

I often see threads on here along the lines of "Daughter has passed grade 5 and so now we need to get a better flute" and I wonder if perhaps they should just get the existing one serviced and have the child do more tone exercises...

I still recommend Yamaha 211s though because they are easy to sell on eBay.

I upgrades my Yamaha 211 to a pretty old Miyawaza over summer. The shop I went to let me try about twenty different flutes, all of them were intermediate flutes, I think the most expensive one (excluding one that was the same as another but just gold plated with no real difference in sound) was a Yamaha 581. While most of the ones I dismissed initially were due to heavy keys when it was down to the last four it was definitely about the tone. I ended up getting the Miyawaza in the end because it had a very pure tone compared to the warmer, if (in my opinion), slightly fuzzier tones of the others.
I guess some of this depends where you draw to line in separating beginner/ intermediate/ advanced/ profession flutes.
This also depends on the person playing the flute as different players will produce different tones and so prefer different flutes.

[Impressionist]

Alicia, what was the make of your cheapie Chinese flute? (please feel free to pm me if it's not appropriate to post it on the thread). I'm interested as I would like to have a range of hire flutes for beginner pupils to rent from me - the cost of purchasing a flute puts a lot of people off learning them and the local primary school has none of its own.

I've had 4 flutes over my playing career. The first was a pretty awful school flute, then I had two Gemheinhardt flutes, the second one with a solid silver head. I sat my LTCL on this and used it in the early stages of my degree. I think the solid silver head did make a difference to the tonal quality.

My current flute is a Pearl 800RBE which is great - I've had it for 25+ years and the sound it produces is considerably better... but it did cost an awful lot more!

I think a good quality beginner flute will last most pupils up to the higher grades but perhaps with a head joint upgrade. I have played on some of my pupils' instruments like Trevor James TJ10x for instance and can produce a tone quality that I could live with for getting through grade 8. A lot of the problems with student models is that they're not properly maintained and many could do with re-padding and a full service and clean.

[Alicia Ocean]

I didn't post the name of my cheap Chinese flute because I don't think that brand is still available, and if you google it you get a lot of Americans saying bad things about Chinese instruments. A bit like the way in the UK we used to say "Hong Kong Rubbish" about things without any justification at all.

I did read a review of bargain Chinese french horns written by a repairer who thought they were amazing.

When I first upgraded from my beginner flute (name lost in time, early 70s) to my Boosey & Hawkes, and then up again to my Yamaha 31 (yes, 31) you could really tell the difference. But nowadays I don't think there's as big a difference between the cheapest, the starter, the intermediate etc.

[andante_in_c]

I would agree that there isn't much difference in the sound you get from different flutes now - to a point. The problem with the cheap instruments is not in the sound but in the softness of the metal. I wouldn't suggest them as hire instruments because of the treatment they are likely to get - a few times of being pushed together with the fingers over the rods and you're likely to find keys start not to close properly. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

Sir James Galway made an interesting video a few years ago of him playing each of his sixteen(?) flutes in turn. The video was shown in black-and-white so that you couldn't tell the silver, gold and platinum flutes apart by sight. Over a period of a few weeks members of the Galway chat list voted for their favourite and tried to identify them. I can't remember exactly which flute won, but the second most popular was the only mass-produced flute in the set - the Murumatsu EX.

When I bought the headjoint I now play on I blind tested all of the headjoints I was given (including my own) so that I wasn't influenced by the name. Despite that I ended up with the Nagahara, so quality did show. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Flossie]

I don't entirely agree. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hides.gif)

I have two flutes and the difference between them is noticable. My normal flute is a silver-tubed japanese instrument. My spare flute is a basic Rosetti model (which I use if I'm playing outside and concerned about rain or am playing somewhere where I wouldn't want to take my good flute). My normal flute is more responsive and has a better tone with a wider colour palette, more flexibility and a smoother mechanism/keys. The articulation also seems to somehow be cleaner. The Rosetti has a brighter and less sweet sound, and just isn't as responsive. There have been a number of times when I have taken my Rosetti somewhere without saying anything about it being a different flute and have had other players say "that doesn't sound like your normal flute" - so the difference must also be noticable to others who know my playing.

That said, a better flute doesn't automatically make someone a better player. Whatever flute I play I will never sound as good as people like the two of you, and I'm sure if either of you played my Rosetti that you would sound better on that than I do on my normal flute.

[andante_in_c]

I don't know anything about the Rosetti flutes, Flossie. It is quite possible that the sound is very different from your other flute. My point was more about the sound of the commonly-found student flutes, and of some of the cheaper versions I have tried. Generally the embouchure hole cut is similar, and the flutes are sweet-toned and easy to play in a way that, for instance, the Buffets and older flutes such as Boosey and Hawkes were not.

Most flute players sound like themselves, whatever the instrument. The difference between players will always be bigger than the difference between instruments, and even though I haven't heard them play I'm sure that will be true for Flossie, Alicia Ocean and me.

[Flossie]

I don't know anything about the Rosetti flutes, Flossie. It is quite possible that the sound is very different from your other flute. My point was more about the sound of the commonly-found student flutes, and of some of the cheaper versions I have tried. Generally the embouchure hole cut is similar, and the flutes are sweet-toned and easy to play in a way that, for instance, the Buffets and older flutes such as Boosey and Hawkes were not.

Yes, the Rosetti is more like the B&H I learnt on. It has a B-foot which gives it a bit more depth than my old Boosey and Hawkes had, and open holes, but it isn't the kind of flute which anyone can just pick up and play easily without having learnt. I got it because it was cheap and did what I wanted and, despite being cheaper, it seemed to offer more than the Stagg flute and other cheap ones I tried. Whilst it is supposed to be a cheap beginners flute, it isn't something I recommend to a beginner.

[Alicia Ocean]

This week I had a pupil with a lisp on certain notes. After checking for leaks I handed them my best flute and found they sounded exactly the same. Then, because I happened had my entire flute collection out and assembled at that moment I selected the B&H and said "try it in this". Of course it was the same outcome because the problem is with the pupil but not the flute. After a couple of minutes on the B&H my pupil went back to their own (cheap) flute and found a dramatic improvement in tone.

I have to conclude that the older flutes were that little bit harder to play and the extra care/effort needed to place the notes accurately is an automatic teaching tool. I have a PnumoPro (plastic thing with propellers) which I've used successfully with getting beginners to make a sound in the first place, but for more advanced pupils I'm going to be using the strategy of giving them a go on the old B&H.

I wish I could remember what my first flute was. I do recall the day when I took it to a big music shop in the city centre to upgrade to the B&H. (I was about 12) The man in the shop said my flute didn't work and was astounded when I played it for him. Back in those days a beginner flute was typically a broken flute. It must have been a good system for filtering out those pupils who were not prepared to struggle against all odds to learn their instrument.

[gwyntdi-enw]

I too started out with a cheapie chinese brand - don't know if its still sold as googling the name gets an instrument supplier on the south coast, which may or may not be the same. This was about 7 or 8 years ago. It was about ?70 new on ebay. I bought it because I didn't know if self or any offfspring would take to it so didn't want to spend much.

I upgraded to a second hand Yamaha 211 and then to a new Jupiter de Medici 911, and passed that on to middle daughter as I didn't get on too well with open holes. Temporarily I went on to a basic B&H with an Armstrong solid head, and now have a Pearl 665. Looking back I can see that the cheapie one is quite heavy and the keywork a bit "clunky", and as andante pointed out the metalwork is quite soft, so the joints are a bit battered. BUT it sounded as well as beginner players could expect and not really different to the Yamaha. The B & H with Armstrong head doesn't sound very different from either the Jupiter or the Pearl, although the latter two are definitely superior in terms of keywork. Daughter went on to pass grade 8 a few years later and I'm also thinking about taking the exam as well, so starting cheap didn't do us any harm.

[Flossie]

I wish I could remember what my first flute was. I do recall the day when I took it to a big music shop in the city centre to upgrade to the B&H. (I was about 12) The man in the shop said my flute didn't work and was astounded when I played it for him. Back in those days a beginner flute was typically a broken flute. It must have been a good system for filtering out those pupils who were not prepared to struggle against all odds to learn their instrument.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) I had a teacher who couldn't play my B&H.

One of nicest flutes I've ever played was a really old LaFleur with hardly any plating. I had it from the county music service for a week while my B&H was being repaired, and it was so beautiful. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif) When I commented on how much I loved it I was told something along the lines of it was a piece of old junk which was being condemned. I so wanted to keep it instead of the B&H, but they wouldn't let me (despite lots of begging), and when they took it off me I hid myself away and cried about the beautiful flute being thrown away. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif) I still don't understand why it mattered to them which flute I had (and they could have had an extra person learn if I'd had the LaFleur and they'd taken the B&H back), and even the head of music agreed that the flute sounded very nice and that there clearly wasn't anything wrong with how it played. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif) It really upset me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[Alicia Ocean]

That's realy sad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[dorfmouse]

At my flute class Christmas recital the piano was tuned very low. My teacher had me check the tuning of my flute at standard A and whatever the lower frequency was, using an electronic tuner I think I played E A over the range of the flute with both tunings. It turned out that my flute, an Altus Azumi 2000 stayed in tune with itself better than her Pearl (don't know which model, but much more expensive than mine).
I don't know if that's something people generally check when buying? It had never occurred to me.
Downside, of course I can't blame my instrument for my failings!

[nicki_flute]

This is the James Galway flute test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0n3n3N3SOY

[Alicia Ocean]

This is the James Galway flute test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0n3n3N3SOY

I wonder how much the cheapest flute he tried was?

I'd like to see him do a similar video with flutes in the price range of typical beginners.