Hi All,

I used to learn the flute in Primary school and my one regret is that i gave it up. I now want to start again and require lots of advice - PLEASE HELP!

How much do i need to spend on a flute? My only option is SH - i can now way afford new.
Is there any makes i should avoid/steer towards?
Any special bits that should be on my flute that would help me?
Should i have lessons or not? (I was hoping to keep the cost down and really wanted to teach myself at my own speed).
I used to have a Yamaha plastic fife to practise on - would it be a good idea to invest in one of these to practise on before i spend money of a flute?

I went into my local music shop but to say they were helpful would be an utter lie - all the flutes they had were c£500 and the staff were not a bit interested in giving me advice.

Sorry to bombard you all with questions but its such a lot of money i dodnt want to waste my time and get the worng thing!

Thanks in advance,

Amy

OK, here's a piece of honest advice calculated to bring the entire wrath of all the flautists on the forum down upon me, but here goes

Go for something cheap (which probably means Chinese) BUT from a retailer who is prepared to guarantee it for at least a few months and, if applicable, who will guarantee to have checked it before posting.

Here's my reasoning in stages:

1. There are only two ways to get a used flute. One is from a shop and the other is from a private sale. Private sales are always risky UNLESS you have someone to go with you and look at the flute. Private sales on ebay, where the best bargains are to be had, are even more risky. A shop will have checked the flute over and done any necessary work BUT you are likely to find that you could get a similar flute brand new at a music warehouse type place for not a lot more - in other words, quite reasonably, the shop will have charged for the work they have done

2. The cheapest way by far to buy a new flute is from a music warehouse type place such as Singing Chicken. Now, I don't want to be guilty of any misrepresentation here, but common sense suggests to me that a shop selling at such a low margin is doing no more than taking the flute off the shelf and posting it. That will be fine much of the time BUT not always. At a rough guess, of all the new flutes we have handled, something like 20% have needed some sort of adjustment (normally very trivial and entirely within the competence of a teacher BUT if you do not have ready access to a teacher then that is a risk factor - is the problem you or the flute? how will you know?) - and this applies to ALL brands even the most popular ones.

3. Renting is just dead money - you may get your rental knocked off the final purchase price but you will probably be paying full list price for the privilege.

4. A new Chinese flute can be had for less than £100 sometimes and certainly £150 from a reputable shop is entirely probable. Such a shop will have checked the flute over first. You will have to regard the flute as effectively disposable because repairers are very reluctant to deal with Chinese flutes because it is uneconomic (a repad, for example, can cost as much as a new flute at some repair shops) but when you have saved the money to get a better one your Chinese flute will still have some value on ebay and if you treat it carefully it may well be a year or more before anything goes wrong, and then it may well be something trivial that goes wrong that any teacher or competent player would be able to fix for you.

By the way I have no axe to grind here - we do not have any cheap Chinese flutes in stock at the moment. I will tell you, though, that our repairer found no fault with the Jinyin - and bear in mind that Chinese quality is improving all the time. ten years from now they'll dominate the woodwind and brass market just like they dominate the strings market now.

Now i will duck and run for cover

Liz