So I clicked over to Casey Burns’ newly designed web site to see the flute Jim just got, and discovered that CB now is making a new “beginners flute”
No Frills, $250
This looks pretty interesting!
A couple folks on the forum have recently purchased (non-beginner) CB flutes that they are very happy with.
I tried a beautiful flute of his this summer in Seattle, and was extremely impressed. Hated to leave it there.
Anyway, I thought I would mention it here. It sounds like a very good option to consider for a beginner looking to buy a first flute from a maker that people are rating pretty favorably lately.
For $250 that’s a pretty sweet deal. I really like the look of mopane - is it’s tone really lesser than boxwood or blackwood? On Casey’s site he speaks pretty highly of it. Any long term mopane owners want to comment on the stability of mopane’s tone over time?
Also, although it looks a lot nicer to me than Sweet’s basic flutes, it looks “chunkier” to me than Casey’s other all wood flutes. Still, for that price, wow!
got to check out the prototype in his shop today when I picked up my new ergonomic pratten in boxwood. the only difference between the “beginner” flute and his other ones is that there’s no separate foot joint and no endcap and you don’t get re-voicing or customization for free. the fit and finish was just as good as the regular ones and so was the sound, one heck of a deal if you’re just starting out
OK, I’m impressed. But he does say on that site that one thing it will never be is a ‘replacement for a professional performance instrument.’ I’m just getting started on flute. I have one of Alan Mount’s flutes which is great to get my going and which will no doubt get played a lot whatever else I buy. I have an Olwell cane F on the way and I have my eye on cane in other keys. But, as a wooden whistle lover, I have my eye on wood and, since I’m pretty sure I want to take this seriously, this instrument is pretty tempting. But I hesitate. Might I regret buying this in a year or so and wish I’d bought the professional performance instrument straight away? What exactly would I be missing?
Well, on the other hand, he “has” to say something like that, right? or he would be undercutting his own business.
A flute like this will probably do you more good than a high end flute, for a couple of years, until you have had a chance to try several high-end flutes and figure out what kind of instrument you’re after. So would an M&E or Seery or Sweet, BTW, but this way you don’t have to deal with getting over the prejudice against plastic or against Ralph Sweet.
For the record, I’ve played exactly 2 Casey Burns flutes (professional models), and they were both very good flutes.
Thanks Glauber, that’s an interesting viewpoint. It’s intersting for me partly because I can’t think of a reason why you would buy a cheap concertina, saxophone or guitar if you could afford a better one. There’s no way you would improve more quickly on it. I guess the embouchure thing really does seem to make flutes different.
Mopane doesn’t have the same bright edge that blackwood does, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it inferior. I picked a Burns flute in mopane over one in blackwood because I felt the one in mopane was a better instrument (although that probably has little to do with the wood itself).
The professional is 975, blackwood and silver,
and–well, there it is.
Mopane sounds very good, a warm rich sound,
but it doesn’t sound quite as good as blackwood,
I think it’s safe to say. I don’t think I
can describe the difference, but
blackwood is a bit louder, more defined,
has more authority. Well that didn’t
help much, did it.
The 250 flute, if it sounds a good as I
expect it does, would be something one
might well keep forever. I play my Sweet
maple D a lot, despite having much better
flutes–it’s easy to play, it sounds good,
it’s there. And if you buy it, you can sell it.
If these sound like the 400 dollar mopane
flutes, they are remarkable for the price.
The first, of course, is that I am always a strong supporter of the idea of having inexpensive, good quality flutes available. I personally know a couple of good musicians who’d love to try their hand at Irish flute but can’t justify even the price of an M&E or Seery.
The second is that if these are accepted and often recommended, they look likely to push the price of the polymer flutes back down a bit.
I do think they’ll always be a place for polymer flutes, if for no other reason, because they are zero-maintenance and nearly indestructable.
If you know you’ll want to “move up” to a higher-grade instrument later, anyway, I think I’d just go ahead and buy the high-end instrument first. provided you can find one available for sale. And assuming you have the funds available, too (or good credit!).
Unless you really need a D flute, the cane instruments may serve well to learn basic technique until your new blackwood beauty is ready from an established maker.
If you want an affordable conical instrument to tide you over until you get your new, expensive wooden flute, you may want to consider a polymer. Yes, they don’t have the sensual qualities of wood, and perhaps sound a bit different, but it’s convenient to have a flute you can leave assembled and pick up to play anytime, and that requires essentially no care except an occasional rinse. That’s how I use the Dixon 3-piece polymer I have; it was good training for the McGee I wound up buying, since it requires a focussed embouchure, and now it sits on a desk for those times I have a minute or two free and don’t want to assemble the McGee and swab it out afterwards. Or for toting along in the car someplace.
If you’re to have just one good conical, though, make it wood, and get the best you can afford, even if you have to wait a while and play your cane flutes in the meantime. The cane instruments are perfectly capable things, I think you’ll find, in the meantime.
A tip: when I was ready to buy a high-end flute, I posted as such here, and had four or five good offers from list members within a few days. The very kind Eilam sold me his R&R McGee for a very good price, and there was no wait at all; you might try the same.
Let me qualify my post: you shouldn’t buy a bad flute. Flutes are comparatively cheaper instruments, though and a $300 flute is probably the equivalent of a $1,000 guitar. Just like you probably shouldn’t spend $10,000 on your first guitar, a $300 flute should serve you very well until you can buy a top-of-the-line instrument with a wait period and everything.
The flute world, especially but not only Irish flute, is made of strongly opinionated people. Everybody is very ready to say that mopane is less bright than blackwood, or that flute X barks better than flute Y, etc. You should take all these opinions (including mine) with a grain of salt. Try as many flutes as you can, and get ready to buy your Ferrari or Lotus when you can make a decision informed by your own experience.
I disagree - a three hundred dollar flute is more like a $150 guitar. It’ll do the trick, but you won’t still be playing it at Carnegie Hall. A $1000 guitar would be way better of an instrument than any $300 flute on this planet.
I agree, too many people get on a bandwagon without ever even trying all the options available to them.
My biggest peeve is when people compare tone woods on flutes with different makers & different designs - Or suggest (or discourage) a makers flutes w/o ever trying one. Basically when someone pulls facts out of thin air.
Our quandry: to pick a good flute you must already know at least to some degree how to play a flute, to try as many flutes as you can. But you must aquire a flute to learn to play flute.
So what is a complete beginner to do?
So there are different approaches. One approach, the one I recommend, is to get a less expensive instrument to learn on–I think the polymers are fine, as are learner’s flutes from Casey Burns, Skip Healy, and the like–and listen to as many flutists and flutes as you can while you learn, so that you get a feel for the sound you want in a flute and what flute might be likely to give it to you.
Another approach is to research as best you can the different makers and flute models and then just pick one. This assumes that (1) you have the available money to purchase a fine performer’s flute, (2) that you either have lucked into a good used flute or are willing / able to wait through the maker’s waiting list, and (3) that you don’t damage the flute in the process of learning to play it and care for it.
Yet another approach assumes you live where you have the option of having a teacher. Depending on the teacher, you may want to just go with what he or she recommends.
It is a bit of a challenge to pick a good flute even when you already have a good handle on embouchure and tone production and have a reasonably clear idea of what kind of flute you want.
I think sometimes it’s easy to forget just how daunting a task it is for a complete beginner.
That’s why I welcome seeing more inexpensive, good quality learner’s flutes on the market from many makers, and why I’m not sure it’s a good idea to try to learn as a complete beginner on the finest flutes made.
If this flute plays well, and I expect that it would, I think Casey is producing a great product for the flute playing community. I hope they’re available without much of a wait. Cost and waiting time for an instrument are two barriers to entry for someone who wants to try/learn flute playing. He’s certainly aiming at the markets that Ralph Sweet and Tony Dixon now occupy. I wish I had known about this over the summer when I did a little “how much flute can I get for how little money” experiment.
My first wooden flute was a Burns. From reading this forum, I think he is respected, but not worshiped the way some other flute makers are. I bought my Burns after about 14 months of study on the Bohm flute. It was an OK flute then, and the price was reasonable. In the almost three years that I’ve had this flute, “it” has improved to the point where “it” is sounding much better than when I first bought it. I think that’s exactly what a low priced instrument of any kind should do.
