A year and a half ago I was persuaded by the owner of one of the most professional music stores in Tel Aviv, to spend much more for a flute than I had intended to pay. He agreed that the flute he was pushing was a better instrument than I was a flautist, but he convinced me by saying that, at my age, I would probably never buy another flute, and I might as well buy a really good one.
So I bought a silver Sankyo flute, a fine instrument, on the low end of the professional instrument category. In the year and a half that I've owned it, I've come closer to being a good enough player to merit a good flute - but there are always others and maybe better ones on the market!
Every once in a while I surf the web and check on other high end brands of flute - Muramatsu, Altus, Pearl, Powell, Brannen, Lopatin, Miyazawa- some of which cost two or three times what I paid for my own flute (as do many models of Sankyo flutes). And if you look at flutes made of platinum and gold, forget it. Each brand boasts of a long list of artists who swear by their product, which makes me wonder. How many great flautists are there out in the world, who can recommend one or another brand of flute? If there really is one kind that is indisputably the best, why doesn't everyone play that one? It should be that if you are a concert musician and have fifteen or twenty thousand dollars to spend on the best instrument within that price range (I didn't pay nearly that much!), you would know which kind to buy. But there are a lot of candidates out there, and each one has its devotees.
It turns out there are dozens of variables - soldered versus drawn tone holes, one kind of pad or another, the head joint, various configurations of keys, the thickness of the walls of the flute, the metal used, and so on. Each of these variables comes with advantages and disadvantages, trade-offs. It could take a person a month, sitting in a flute boutique (there are such), trying one instrument after another, before plunking down one's money and bringing an instrument home.
Since the best instruments are hand made, there is also a good bit of variation among them: one Altus flute will not play exactly like another, even if they are the same model, and have adjacent serial numbers. And, of course, one's playing affects the instrument, and the instrument affects one's playing. The instrument you buy today won't be the same in six months.
In the end, there's probably nothing like the objectively best brand of flute (or any other musical instrument). Yet, as a musician, one always thinks that one might find a better instrument, and that instrument will advance your playing. For sax players, in addition to the instrument itself, there are mouthpieces and neck pieces, reeds, and ligatures. For the flautist there are head joints. It's a lot like the photographer trying to get the best lens she can afford.
The man who sold me my flute was right. I'm very unlikely to buy another one, unless this one is stolen or destroyed somehow. I'm also very unlikely to lay out a couple of thousand dollars for a different head joint. The main thing that will improve my playing is not better gear but more practice!
So I bought a silver Sankyo flute, a fine instrument, on the low end of the professional instrument category. In the year and a half that I've owned it, I've come closer to being a good enough player to merit a good flute - but there are always others and maybe better ones on the market!
Every once in a while I surf the web and check on other high end brands of flute - Muramatsu, Altus, Pearl, Powell, Brannen, Lopatin, Miyazawa- some of which cost two or three times what I paid for my own flute (as do many models of Sankyo flutes). And if you look at flutes made of platinum and gold, forget it. Each brand boasts of a long list of artists who swear by their product, which makes me wonder. How many great flautists are there out in the world, who can recommend one or another brand of flute? If there really is one kind that is indisputably the best, why doesn't everyone play that one? It should be that if you are a concert musician and have fifteen or twenty thousand dollars to spend on the best instrument within that price range (I didn't pay nearly that much!), you would know which kind to buy. But there are a lot of candidates out there, and each one has its devotees.
It turns out there are dozens of variables - soldered versus drawn tone holes, one kind of pad or another, the head joint, various configurations of keys, the thickness of the walls of the flute, the metal used, and so on. Each of these variables comes with advantages and disadvantages, trade-offs. It could take a person a month, sitting in a flute boutique (there are such), trying one instrument after another, before plunking down one's money and bringing an instrument home.
Since the best instruments are hand made, there is also a good bit of variation among them: one Altus flute will not play exactly like another, even if they are the same model, and have adjacent serial numbers. And, of course, one's playing affects the instrument, and the instrument affects one's playing. The instrument you buy today won't be the same in six months.
In the end, there's probably nothing like the objectively best brand of flute (or any other musical instrument). Yet, as a musician, one always thinks that one might find a better instrument, and that instrument will advance your playing. For sax players, in addition to the instrument itself, there are mouthpieces and neck pieces, reeds, and ligatures. For the flautist there are head joints. It's a lot like the photographer trying to get the best lens she can afford.
The man who sold me my flute was right. I'm very unlikely to buy another one, unless this one is stolen or destroyed somehow. I'm also very unlikely to lay out a couple of thousand dollars for a different head joint. The main thing that will improve my playing is not better gear but more practice!
2 comments:
The choice of headjoints is easy-Lafin.Flutes?A good used Haynes,is better than any Japanese flute,but better to choose it yourself.Haynes headjoints are not good,and they are relatively low pitched at 440,but otherwise better than the competition.In order to buy a flute,it is good if you trust yourself to pick one out.And,Haynes flutes,the good ones,are handmade,not the commercial drawn hole models.
Haynes headjoints are not good.The flutes are better than the competition and the preferred serial nos. are between 30 and 40 thousand.
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