Hey there, I've been borrowing my friends flute for my lessons but I'd quite like to invest in my own However as i'm a student my budget is LOW! I've managed to see one for £69 and my teacher read about it and took a look at the site it was on and said it would be very suitable as i'm only a mini beginner! But does anyone know of anything cheaper (I know that's very cheap as it is!) But just want to see

Thanks for your help! Laura x

Be very careful buying really cheap instruments as they often require setting up and regulating which can cost you more than what you paid initially. I know someone that bought a cheap clarinet for £99 brand new - none of the keys were regulated and the metal literally bent in your hands, it was so soft and was not worth repairing.

A reasonable "cheap" student flute would be a Buffet 6070-2 costing £270 or Trevor James at £285. A Yamaha 211 would always be my first choice, but they are more expensive at £269. You could also think about hiring one e.g. monthly hire for a Buffet is £13.50 or for the better Yamaha 211 it's £18.45.

Or think about buying a second hand flute?

oh yeah, ok, thanks for the info...i'll keep my eye out on 2nd hand ones Cheers

I would think £69 would probably be a waste of money, you could get a decent second hand one which would be a lot more but would last you a long long time and still not be as much as a new one.

Where's the site where they're being sold for £69?

I totally agree. There is a new Trevor Packer one for £199 which is supposed to be good value, though I would stick with something like the Yamaha 211. Spending £69 on an instrument would, I feel, be a false economy.

David

Yup - steer well clear of anything that cheap! Two of my students who had been renting flutes from school recently turned up to lessons clutching "their own" both bought off the Net for £60. Absolutely GHASTLY things. A rusty tin can would have been more effective. Second hand Trevor James, Yamaha or Jupiter would set you up. Good luck.

WHY do parents/grandparents/students go and buy instruments without even asking their teacher for advice first???! Madness!

Because, it seems like a "good" and cheaper idea than buying the teacher's recomendations??

As far as the cheapies go, Jinyin is pretty much OK - our repairer had no complaints anyway.

Liz

Only applies if it occurs to them to ask the teacher in the first place

Liz: good tip, thanks

ahh ok.

'Xactly

You mean people buy instruments without testing them out first?

The big danger of buying instruments via eBay... I work on the theory that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

OK I know of 2 students at school who have bought flutes of ebay from the same seller for £90 and the flute teacher was really impress by them. He has told others to purchase same. I teach one of the girls piano and I briefly played c major chromatic and had no real problems. It blew well the tone seemed ok from a non flautist viewpoint. But dont know how it will be in years to come.

Hmm, I always advise my students to buy the Yamaha 211 aswell. One of htem bought a 'Prelude' - the footjoint was miles too small for the middle joint and the crowd they bought it from just said 'oh. wrong size? that happens sometimes' Right.....

That's what i've just bought and it arrived today, My teacher was very impressed, and played hers and the one I have and it sounded exactly the same, some people can't afford a yamaha 211 just yet so i'm sorry for not buying an expensive flute, i'm a beginner and I felt I didnt need the most expensive ones just yet.

Singing_La, I hope the flute serves you well, I don't think anyone on here was getting at you, it's just that as with most things you get what you pay for, and it would have been wrong of experienced teachers and players on here to say "yes you'll be fine with a £69 flute" knowing that most of them are terrible. You may have struck it lucky - I hope so - but we were just trying to help.

its cool , I dont mind anyway, I@m seriosuly not gonna spend loads on a flute, as i really dont have it (I'm a uni student after all ) But the one I bought in th end was £110 not £69 - and i do agree with everyone that £69 iswaay too good to betrue, so thanks for the advice And sorry if I sounded cranky about it!

LAura x

Hope you enjoy your flute Laura, it is a wonderful instrument to play:)

You did a little but glad you're not really I do hope your flute is ok and lasts well.

Thank you

Just a side note, since I am considering starting flute. Is hygiene an issue with secondhand flutes?

No... but I suppose it depends where you buy it from! The music shop near where I live thoroughly cleans reconditioned wind instruments; whereas if you went for Ebay or something, it might be!

yes, I took this into consideration, but I ended up buying a brand new one for £100 - off Ebay, but since I am a complete beginner I obviously wasn't too fussed what flute I ended up with - my teacher played and said it'd take up up to grade 5 easily..which is exactly what I want at the moment

Thanks for your input. My family wants me to buy one off the internet as well, but I don't think they are too crazy about eBay. Does anybody know any other websites that sell flutes and are reliable? Also, what brands generally work best for a beginner? Are there any other specifications a beginner should know?

A few pointers, then:

1. Virtually ALL the flutes now on the market will play very easily and produce a perfectly reasonable tone, as long as they are in correct adjustment

2. ANY flute can arrive out of adjustment at the shop, even the Y ...ou know what. If you buy from a shop that just picks them off the shelf and puts them in the post then you have to take that risk. That said, chances are high that it will be something your teacher can fix easily with a screwdriver. Also of course you have the absolute right in law to return any item that you purchased unseen, within seven working days, as long as it was purchased from a business rather than an individual and as long as it was not purchased at auction (so ebay BIN is protected but not an ebay auction). The seller is not obliged to refund your postage costs and most will not do so.

3. The problem with certain chinese flutes is that the metal is too soft and that means the keys bend easily.

4. Overhauling a flute, depending on the shop, can easily cost over £100. This means that cheap flutes are effectively disposable: once something goes wrong that the teacher cannot fix, you may as well throw them away, it isn't going to be worth repairing them even if you can find a repair shop to do it.

5. Contrary to the beliefs of 95% of flute teachers, there ARE perfectly respectable makes that play as well as the Y...ou know what, are as reliable as the Y...ou know what, sound better that the Y...ou know what and are not made in China or Taiwan. Flute fashions change - I well remember when it was Trevor James or nothing, before that it was Buffet or nothing, now it's Yamaha or nothing - what's next in the fashion parade I wonder? Our money's on Armstrong.

Liz

I bought my daughter a brand new piccolo from Ebay a couple of months ago.
It was a venus (never heard of it before). anyway it cost £69, and I was a bit dubious.
the feedback from other buyers was really glowing, and I contacted several of them in addition to check they were genuine.
It is a fantastic little instrument, and her flute teacher also very impressed.

So not all cheap instruments on ebay are bad. The guy I bought mine from was from Cambridge. Tim I think his name was.

I bought my daughter a brand new piccolo from Ebay a couple of months ago.
It was a venus (never heard of it before). anyway it cost £69, and I was a bit dubious.
the feedback from other buyers was really glowing, and I contacted several of them in addition to check they were genuine.
It is a fantastic little instrument, and her flute teacher also very impressed.

So not all cheap instruments on ebay are bad. The guy I bought mine from was from Cambridge. Tim I think his name was.

I brought a really cheap flute (about £120) when i first started playing, and was told that it would last me up to grade 3. Seems it had taken me about 6 years to get that far on violin I figured it would last me a while. However, 5 months later and here we are, I'm already preparing for the grade 3 exam, and my little cheap flute can no longer cope, so guess what's in my christmas stocking this year? A brand new shiny Trevor James Masters M1 flute! Yey!

I would totally advise agaist buying a cheap flute, i brought a cheap one for £120 and 5 months later end up getting one for nearly £900. (ok, so i made sure it would last me a long while).