Hi. I am a tourist visiting from the whistle forum. I can sort-of play the whistle (high and low) and was toying with the idea of learning to play flute.
I am almost entirely ignorant of the flute world, but have read some of this forum and searched on ‘beginner’ without much luck. I have two questions and would be grateful if someone could answer…
Does anyone have a link to an idiots guide to the whistle. I am most interested in keyless (I think) as it will be more familiar. But something describing the purpose and usefulness of each bit of a flute would be good.
What would be the easiest flute to learn on. I do not mind buying a cheap one and then moving up, and I dont mind spending a bit more on a first flute if it will ease my learning. I live in the UK and am resistant to purchasing from the abroad - import duties extra delay, etc. Any recomendations? My primary goal is to ease the early learning curve.
Free starter lessons sound good. I am remarkably isolated from any useful resources here. My gues is that the nearest teacher would be an hours drive away if I am lucky.
Gosh, it costs that much to start? They do look like nice instruments though.
i bought a keyless D flute from Tony recently, which i’m waiting to have keys added to, and i found him very pleasant and easy to deal with, and also very open to working with you on particular details like hole or key placement. he uses post-mounted keys so you can buy a keyless flute now and have keys added later; his waiting list for keys is about four months at the moment.
personally i’m very happy with the flute and i prefer it to my other (much cheaper) polymer flute, but since i’m hardly an advanced player you might want to take that with a grain of salt!
Finding your embouchure can take a while when you first start, but it will develop.
Once you are up & running, they have a 3 piece delrin model which is quite a nice flute to play.
There are also Damian Thompson flutes that are worth looking at too.
Both companies are UK based, & I’ve used them happily.
I saw the dixon and its price-point attracted me. I have some of Tony Dixons whistles and would be happy to buy from him… I restrained my enthusiasm as I did not know if his flute would be easy or hard to learn on. I would be happy to pay more if I could begin to get results sooner (ie to avoid a known hard-to-play model), but if not that would be my flute of choice. So the question changes to could I do better than this for a first flute?
i think his current website is http://www.tonymillyard.com/, or at least that’s the one i’ve been using - it has all the info about his flutes on it (including a couple of videos).
So the question changes to could I do better than this for a first flute?
I don’t think so, not if you want to keep the price sensible for a first introduction, next step up is in the region of £150 to £200.
(At least, that was what I found, my second flute was a Damian Thompson, I think I paid £158, 2 piece delrin, but his prices have gone up a bit since I got mine.)
There is a 3 piece aluminium flute for about £100, I got mine pre used from Ebay, it plays fairly well, but I personally think a delrin would be better.
People sometimes defeat themselves, and waste money, by purchasing inexpensive
flutes that are never going to play well. Rather than throw money away, there is something to
be said for buying a good flute, which I reckon you can do for under 400 (e.g. the Copley delrin, which is
a good flute). I’ve owned two or three Dixons and been disapointed, FWIW. Dixon whistles are better
than the flutes. Worth remembering that the good flute is money in another form, in that you can recover the cash by selling it if one day you wish to.
Let me drill this into you: buy the best instrument you can afford. It seems tempting to get a cheap one “just to see,” but really, borrow or rent a good instrument to see if you enjoy playing it. There are few, if any, bargains to be had, and a good instrument keeps its value if you end up selling it. I’ve never once regretted buying a good instrument despite the expense frightening me sometimes. I have regretted buying cheaper instruments, where all told a few hundred dollars more would have made all the difference.
I’ll chime in on the Millyard flutes - I love his F flutes, and he’s a very nice guy, so do go see him if you have the chance!
Thanks for the mentions Normski & Fatmac. My flutes start at £185 for the most basic (tunable) delrin ‘two piece’ model.
I am in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, UK.
More details/pictures etc on the links below, cheers! https://www.thompsonflutes.com/ https://www.facebook.com/thompsonflutes/
Don’t bother with the bottom line Dixon thingy. IMO those are a waste of money. The best-cheapest option I’m aware of is Garry Somers’ aluminium body/Delrin head flute. I acquired one second-hand and it is brilliant. The embouchure cut is especially good. It sounds and plays better than many flutes I’ve tried costing 3-4 times the price. It would be an excellent choice for a beginner in terms of being a reliably workable instrument that will bring a player on, not hinder them. Of course, it doesn’t look “beautiful”, but it does the job extremely well. http://www.somers-flutes.com/aluminium-flute-delrin-head
A while back Hobgoblin were stocking them at about £120, though last time I looked they had no stock
