Hi

I'm thinking of buying a new flute, but there's loads to choose from, and i was wondering if any of you had recommendations of what is the best make to buy?? I've got a selmer one at the moment, but it's only borrowed and i wanted something a bit better now i'm at grade 5/6 standard....

thanks, Jade x x

I have a Muramatsu. Muramatsu flutes are spectacular, and I love mine. Some other good ones to consider are Altus and Haynes.

There isn't a 'best' make, it varies, it depends what suits the player, and also the budget. We can suggest makes but if you can only spend £X then it means some options are cut out. Go to a music shop, with someone musical like your music teacher and try out as many different flutes as you can and choose the one which is right for you

I second Nicki: work out your budget, go to a specialist shop, and try out as many flutes as possible within that budget. Muras are by all accounts amazing but you need to know how much you can spend anyway, and what suits one person perfectly may not work for you at all. If you can take your teacher with you for trying out, all the better!

i suppose it depends on which flute u feel most comfotarble with, i have a trevor james and my tenor is a trevor james, there good (well for me anyway!)

My teacher has told me after i have done my gd. 5 this winter, i should upgrade my flute because i am progressing so quick she is thinking of entering me in for gd. 7 next summer ! On one condition that i get a upgraded flute.

I have been told i should be looking for an open hole flute, which has at least a solid silver head joint. So far i have looked at the Yamaha 371, the Trevor James Cantabile, a Gemeinhardt flute and a Powell Sonare 5000. I am totally spoilt for chioce, i know i have got to make this discision either now so i can used to the new flute and play it for gd. 5 or when i've finished the gd. 5!!

Will these flute get me through to gd. 8? and will they be ok for playing in a band i currentely play clarinet (the band is at least gd. 7) in for the future as i want to transfer to flute? If not can anyone recomment other flutes?

Thanks!

^ In my opinion, open holes with solid silver headjoint should do you at least to grade 8, you'd probably want to get a higher end model if you're going to uni with it or something.

As for my input, I've heard a lot of bad press about Trevor James flutes - the mechanics are better than they have been but are still poor so you might need it repaired more often, and the actual tube of the flute is often quite tapered which makes it easier to make a nicer sound but is cheating a bit I suppose.
That's just what I've heard, I tried a TJ with a rose gold riser and I liked the headjoint but my teacher was (mock) horrified that I'd even brought a TJ into her house Gemeinhardts also get a bad press, they're more popular in America I think so I've never tried one, but from what I've heard they're not the best.

I also tried the Powell Sonare but I didn't like it much either - it also had a tapered headjoint and apart from the fact it looked disproportionate, the sound didn't appeal to me much. I think Yamaha is always a safe sort of option - you're pretty much guaranteed a solid instrument that won't fall apart too easily, but I've never played a yamaha or compared it to other flutes so I don't know what they sound like. Other than that, I don't like the look of the Yamaha open keys I'm just picky like that.


If you can find them, maybe look into the Jupiter DiMedici range - I started on a Jupiter and I've heard some good things about the DiMedicis. Also, for more professional advice, have a look on Flutenet or Jennifer Cluff's site (Google them, I can't find the links sorry), and if you can, sign up for the Flutenet newsgroup on Yahoo, there'll be some good informative posts in response to people asking similar questions.

Hope I've helped, I'm back off to my orchestra camp now!

I didn't like the Powell Sonare either, my teacher liked the sound I made, but I didn't! I now have a Yamaha 574 body and William Simmons headjoint and it is fantastic. Maybe, one option would be to get a flute like a Yamaha 311 (I'm saying this as I don't know ones which are similar to this), but get a nicer, solid silver headjoint, it makes a lot of difference!

I'm glad a open hole/ silver headjoint will be fine for up to gd. 8! Thats enough for me! I won't be going to uni as i left school at 16 and am an estate agent!!!

I can't wait to try these other flutes and will certainly consider the jupiter as well!! I must say i like a powerful, full sound and have looked at wooden flutes (the one i looks at was cheap and i later found out it wasn't all that good!)

Have got to go and try some more!! Can't wait. I've only been playing flute for around 3 months and can't believe i've got so far that i've got to upgrade my flute YAY!! BTW at the moment i play a buffet 6020 would anyone recommend a higher end buffet flute?

Thanks Again!

I have a Trevor James masters M1 with open holes (and has a solid silver headjoint), and i think thats great. I think it just depends what suits you. I've known someone to get through uni and into music teaching (has grade 8 and dip etc), playing a Yamaha 311!!

Armstrong 430E. There ARE flutes other than Yamaha out there ....

Liz


Quite. I got grade 8 on a battered old B&H Emperor.

Liz

I've heard of Armstrong from some people at my old school, but Yahamha and Buffet seemed the overwhelming favourites. I have a Yamaha 211 that got me through grade 6, and intend to use it again for grade 8. I was told the 211 should last until professional level (ie diploma, university). I often wonder if this is a good idea but I can't afford to upgrade (next will probably be an accoustic piano and nice wooden recorder), but I think people have done grade 8 on the 211 and passed. Whether anyone has had distinction grade 8 on one is something I don't know.

First study flutes at uni typically had Altus or Miyazawa.

Have seen the Armstrong on ebay they look really good value for money! but does anyone know where you can try them?

Maybe one of the top London flute shops. Also, local music shops might have them

I'm thinking of buying a Trevor James Cantabile this summer. Anyone have one? What do they think of it??

I suppose you should look at Altus, Miyazawa and Muramatsu.

I suspect a 211 would last pretty well, esp if you could upgrade the headjoint.


I have tried one and was suitably impressed.

I have! And so has at least one of my students. Actually, mine was a 21S, the forerunner of the 211.

And I passed DipABRSM playing a Trevor James Virtuoso, which is a solid silver version of the basic TJ.

The fashion for upgrading to intermediate flutes around Grade 6 is comparatively recent. Everyone I knew when I was first learning took Grade 8 on a Yammy.

I didn't upgrade from my plastic clarinet until about grade 8 standard, and this was about 2000 or 2001. Wonder if it's a trend accross the board now; upgrade at grade 5 or 6, not diploma.

Well there you go!!

As I know I have said before, it's not the flute you blow, it's how you blow your flute!

My initial upgrade was to give me a fighting chance in my A Level recital (had to get a lot better exceedingly quickly) - but my teacher didn't let me till I had got the best sound I possibly could out of my Yamaha 211N (the nickel version, which gave me awful eczema on my bottom lip ) and making me do that got me making a far better sound than I would have otherwise, I'm sure.

thanks for your replies everyone!!

i don't think i'd go for an open-holed flute. what difference does it make having one anyway?

you all seem to like different makes of flute. i think i'll just do what some of you said and go to a shop and just try a few different ones out. i just need a good one to last me until grade 8!! i'm not doing music at uni, i'm more a french or science person!

The awful impression I get on here and on the string board is that beginners seem to be expected to manage with inferior or poor instruments.
How can you expect someone to learn to play well on an instrument that is not considered good enough for someone with experience to play?

I'm not sure which posts have given you that impression, sbhoa. There are some very cheap Eastern european and Chinese flutes around that are only worth turning into tablelamps, but most flutes designed for students are at least adequate, and, if you avoid the stuffy, difficult to play Gemeinhardts and Buffets, rather good.

It's not all that. Some flutes, a beginner would just not be able to get the best out of. They wouldn't be able to exploit that potential. (same with top notch violins - it doesn't matter if a violin still sounds amazing in 6th position if you never play above 1st!)

Some headjoints, which for a top flautist could provide lots of flexibility and tone colours, could for a beginner just be too hard to get a reliable sound out of.

And in practical terms, most starters can't afford to invest in a top instrument when they don't yet know if they will be any good.

Plus, what's the point in spending say £1000+ if you don't know whether the child will continue to be interested?

I think it's the posts which suggest that it's necessary to upgrade at around grade 5.

It's not necessary, but beneficial for some

Generally by Grade 5 a player has developed enough to be able to exploit the range of tone colours etc. available from a better headjoint. Student flutes are manufactured to make the flute easier to play for beginners. A really good player will sound good on a student flute, but even better on a pro model.

Yes, I am not saying I am a really good player, but my playing transformed when I went from a Yamaha 211S to my current set up.

OK... that's a bit clearer now thanks.

I'll shut up now .

It's ok Don't worry.

Ditto.

Contact the seller and ask. All reputable internet sellers will send goods on approval and also by law you have the right to return goods for ANY reason (in the original condition) within seven working days - this doesn't apply to auctions or to private sales but is well worth bearing in mind when dealing with regular businesses.

Liz

Oh thanks!!! Can't wait til my flute trying next saturday!!!

OK, mounting hobby horse now - and expecting to incur the wrath of flute teachers!

I used to teach violin for a living. We violin teachers used to be very lucky if we got a child with her own violin, let alone a decent beginner's instrument. Frequently I had to sit there with a nail file doing things to the bridge, or poking holes through the pegs so they could actually be strung. The idea of a beginner coming with a £350 instrument would have been beyond my wildest dreams. How is it that clarinet and flute teachers seem, in many places, to be able to insist that the pupil turns up with a Buffet B12 clarinet or a Yamah 211 flute? Is it just a matter of flute and clarinet being such oversubscribed instruments or do flute and clarinet teachers know something I don't?

I agree - £350 on a flute for a child who, realistically, is likely to give up in a few months (because that is what the statistics show) seems totally over the top to me. You come across teachers who insist that the flute has to have a split E and I find myself thinking - why? Top E isn't needed till grade 4 (if I recall correctly) and the plain facts are that most who start the flute, like ANY instrument, will have given up before then. If the child continues then surely THAT is the time to say "OK now you really do need a flute with a split E" and send the parents off to buy your favourite brand. Starting with a cheap Chinese flute (I use that term because much more expensive flutes are also made in China these days, despite what everyone seems to think) on the understanding that this flute is to be regarded as disposable because a service on it will cost more than buying a new flute of the same make, seems to me to make perfect sense. If the child gives up, the loss is not huge, if the child continues then as soon as something happens with the flute that the teacher cannot quickly fix - or as soon as that split E is needed, if the cheap flute doesn't have a split E - a new flute can be obtained with the parents being reasonably sure that the child will carry on playing.

Surely what a beginner needs is a flute that plays easily right now - which is true of all the cheap ones I have ever seen - and that is in proper adjustment (ie. has not come from a discount warehouse which will send it straight out without being checked, and not used from ebay from where the buyer might save £50 or so but the flute might need a complete repad)

Liz

I think that must be at least part of it.

And ironically I think (just my thoughts - absolutely no way to back them up, though...!) most beginner violinists would benefit more from having a decent instrument than beginner flautists would benefit from anything beyond "easy to play", it always seems to me that on the violin it's so hard just trying to get a vaguely decent sound out of even a quite good instrument can be tough. Ho hum!

Exactly what I ended up doing yesterday. Child appears with violin ("only used once or twice") bought on ebay. I was informed her mummy couldn't tune it, had already broken the E string..... I struggled to tune it as well. . By the time I'd finished tuning the last string all the others had slipped again..eventually had to give up - 2other kids waiting for me. Then it developed a rattle & I had to extract a lump of wood from its innards. Don't think the bow hair looked too healthy either.
Sent her away with a message to get mum to buy peg paste....
Parent obviously thought this was a better investment than paying the £30 to have the loan of a serviceable, well set-up board instrument

Perhaps that was why it had only been used once or twice!!!

I wonder if I'm the only seller who has an attack of the horrors every time I read a story like this, thinking "it wasn't one we sold her, was it?"

I recall having to take half a page of a newspaper out of a violin once. Never did work that one out since the violin was straight from a rather reputable workshop!

Liz

Just a slight correction, Liz. Top E is required for Grade 3 (two octave F and G major scales).

My concern with the cheap flutes is firstly, that many of the ones I've tried are horribly difficult to play (not your Jinyins, you'll be pleased to know), and that a number of students I teach will be forced to carry on with a flute that's gone out of alignment/needs repadding etc. for several years because parents don't see the need to replace it, and it's not worth paying the cost of servicing or fixing a cheap flute.

I wasn't saying that people should spend £1000 on beginner flutes, my first flute costs around £100! I was thinking more about upgrading, rather than the first flute people had.

do any of you have open holed flutes? and what difference does it make having one?

I have one, but I didn't choose my flute because it had open holes.

Ah, I stand corrected. I was sure it used to be grade four but the scales do get more difficult all the time of course.


Certainly a parent who wants to go down the cheap flute route would have to be prepared to understand that it would need replacing as soon as it had more wrong with it than the teacher could fix with a screwdriver. With violins we are able to make parents understand that (say) a half size violin is only likely to last a couple of years so I can't see why it should be a problem making this clear.

I've tried four different cheap Chinese brands (apart from the Lark I had which was my first flute, and the "Claremont" gold plated one which was my second, someone stole that one presumably thinking it was worth a lot of money!) - Selmer Prelude, Jinyin, Odyssey and Simba (though the Odyssey and Simba admittedly bore an uncanny resemblance to one another) and found them all easy to play. I guess naming unplayable brands would be likely to land us all in trouble so we'd better not, but I honestly had got the impression that they would all be much the same in terms of playability.

That said, I'd still be curious to know how "you" (meaning flute teachers in general) manage to persuade parents to buy what you want. I recall some well off parents who had a son learning the violin, grade 3 at age 8 and a great singer too, and when he reached that stage and needed to move up a size I persuaded the parents to buy him his own violin. They asked me to come with them because they had a used one in mind but they weren't going to pay £40 for it so they wanted me to find something wrong with it. I shouldn't assume they were rich, they said - last year they had been obliged to paint their own landing stage

Liz

I have an open-holed flute, Nicki-flute does as well. What's the difference? - well you can't get away with not having your fingers in the right place on the keys!!
I think it's difficult to give an objective answer. Someone who plays an open-holed flute is unlikely to ever want to go back to playing a closed hole flute IMHO. I wonder whether some of it is due to the fact that people generally move to open holes when they upgrade - so they're moving up from a student closed hole flute to a better flute anyway .

Has anyone heard of Blessing flutes, that was my first flute.

I was lucky enough to have a Y211N as my first flute - 2nd hand. One of the bonuses of Yamahas of course is that I sold it some years later for the same it was bought for

Don't like nickel flutes though - gave me a horrible rash on my chin

I have an open hole flute - I'm just so used to it now I find plateau keys feel very odd indeed. As Andrea says, you can't get away with not having your fingers in a somewhat correct place on it! You can also do microtones etc, and some people claim there are other advantages but I'm no expert. However: Andante has a closed hole flute and is planning on doing her LRSM soon, so a closed hole flute is not exactly a hindrance to a good flautist

I've always wondered if open holes really make a difference. The first flute in the orchestra I played in up here played a closed hole flute an she's been a professional flautist for about 20 years. I can't imagine a clarinet with closed holes but of course sax and bassoon always do. Does it really matter on a flute? I still have the closed hole 211 and it sounds OKish (listen to my recordings ) and as I said got me through grade 6. Do fingers covering the holes make a huge difference in practice?

Maybe more of a personal, aesthetic sort of thing. I like the feel of the keys on my flute - they feel delicate & neat. The Yamaha 211 in comparison feels clumsy with uncomfortable feeling,clunky sort of keys. Oh dear, I'm beginning to sound slightly mad I think

You're not the only one.

I don't like the feel op Yammy open holes any more. And I find playing with plateau keys very weird!

Open holes do mean you really can't get away with absolutely abysmal finger placement (though you don't have to be perfect, I have to admit ) because otherwise you wouldn't cover the holes properly and you would have probs. So they encourage you to have nice curved fingers, although naturally it's possible yo have excellent finger placement with plateau keys too. Just as it's possible to play a good flute with bad tone or play a 211 with beautiful tone.

I like my open holes, but then I am rather biased

Throwing another question into the mix - How easy or hard is it to play an 'inline G' if you've been used to offset G? So many advanced flutes seem to be inline? Does it make a difference what your hand size is? (my hands have short fingers).
And if there's an option to go with C foot or B foot at no extra cost which would you pick?

Thanks