OK, here’s the deal. After a good year on a Tipple I think I got to a point that I need something better. First question is, would a M&E be a upgrade in terms of playability and sound? Both of them seem to get high praise on this board.
At first I was considering a better keyless, but I’m also doing quite some non-irish stuff that require notes outside diatonic scale. For example there is this ethno jam thingy we have here and a lot of times my whistles and Tipple have a rough time deailng with scales that show up, half holing can be a bit tricky at speed. So the second question is are the keys on the M&E worth the extra €? I remember reading somwhere that they are a bit wobbly. But it is by far the cheapest 6-key around and fits right at the top end of my budget wich is about € 900.
Should I go with the 6-key m&e or buy a wooden keyless and get a job and save up for a wooden keyed flute? I’m not a profesional musician and just need something for playing with people for fun and maybe a gig or two. I am already almost certain that I will order a m&e, but want to hear your opinion if it’s worth it and I can still be turned away from buying it with a good argument.
You could get a wooden flute by Gilles Lehart for 600€ plus 90€ per key. They’re good flutes, and Lehart’s keys are probably better than M&E keys which are imported from Pakistan. Even though I personally never tried a keyed M&E.
M&E’s keys are imported (maybe from Pakistan)…they’re not fancy looking, but they are sturdy and very functional.
Leharts are great flutes, but the M&E is a fine flute and is cheaper and requires no special care. Yes, it is an improvement over the Tipple being a conical bored flute made in the same manner as any wooden flute. I’ve played two (own only one - my current 6 key) and neither was in the least bit “wobbly”. Both were solidly constructed. If a joint is wobbly, it can be tightened up either by sending it back to Michael or by adding some PVC glue to the joint, letting it dry (this is the really important step), and then you should be good to go.
I like my M&E well enough that I’ve not bought another flute in the past several years despite having the opportunity. The keys are great, the flute is solid, and I can travel and camp with it without worrying about hurting the flute.
When played by my teacher it sounds magnificent…but I subscribe strongly to the theory that the player makes the biggest difference in a flute’s sound provided you have a decent flute to play on.
So if the the M&E flute keys are sourced in Pakistan the keys are PROBABLY of questionable quality ( Gabriel insinuation)
whereas, if the M&E flute keys are tough and work well their Pakistani sourcing could only be a probabilty (Jayhawk’s “maybe”).
You should be able to find a decently playable lower end fully keyed antique wooden flute for less than the M&E, like some of the German or French made late C19th ones. I’ve none ready to sell at present, but they do crop up.
I’ll second the Lehart vote. I play one myself and I love it! If you can possibly spend some extra € it’d be worth it. My 6-key flute cost 1165€ and the wait time was very short.
I’ve played a few M&E flutes and while they are good quality I would recommend a Lehart over an M&E. I had a 6-key polymer M&E (which was very heavy!) and I thought the keys were sturdy enough. I didn’t find any problems with them.
One thing you could consider is to buy a good keyless flute and have the keys added later.
Hmm … thanks for the swift responses. Those Leharts do look lovely, they somehow managed to get pass me (all other sex keys I could find were really expensive). Bah … now I’m confused again.
Jemtheflute and denny, while a 19C flute would be great to own, I really don’t know much about them, much less how to restore one if needed. All I know about antique flutes is what I read while lurking on this forums. Also I hear they have intonation issues by modern standards, that’s why I was thinking of buying a flute made by modern makers that have a good reputation (m&e seemed to fit the profile). Note in mind also that wheater here is not as mild as UK, can go up to over 37°C in Avgust and under -15° in January, with varying humidity … would that make caring fot an antique flute more difficult?
hi !i live ‘near’ you, in croatia in split.
i have5 keyed lehart and his flutes are great in terms of tone and price.
right now, i will upgrade 4 keys on m&e flute, because i want to have some keys on flute during summer. here is even wormer than in slovenia ( i live on coast, temperature up 40 c).
if you don’t need polymer flute, go to lehart, othervise buy keyed m&E ( btw, i trade my delrin seery flute for m&e, because keys on m&e flute is cheaper- 90 euros m&e versus 150-200 euros seery)
also, for your information lehart and m&e are rudall& rose type flutes.
Well, regardless of whether or not they’re Pakistani made, they work…as well as the keys on my old antique german flute I used to own and as well as the post mounted keys on a Dave Williams’ flute I’ve played (most other keyed flutes I’ve played are block key mounts).
An M&E is a “no-frills” kind of flute, but they play well and if keyed are reliable. I don’t care where the keys come from as long as the holes are in the right place, the keys seal, and the posts are tight.
FWIW - if I was in the market for a wooden flute, a Lehart would be my first choice.
If you want keys, I recommend an eight-key. If you want to play with others (and by this, I assume you mean other than ITM), you will want to play in C, which is more successfully done with an eight-key because you will often want to go below low D. At least, that has been my experience. Plus, it is really, really lovely to be able to go three notes lower. I would never invest in keys just for the sake of not having to do cross-fingerings. If you don’t gain some extra notes, it hardly seems worth the expense, IMO.
Just to add an opposing view to this opinion, but I rarely need notes lower than D (there are only 2 unless you have a low B or A key on the flute as well). Cross fingering and half holing are OK, but I’ve yet to hear a well done Eb half holed…and some of the third octave notes only work well with keys. If keys truly did not make things better for the player, there wouldn’t have been 1 key, 4 key, 6 key and 8 keyed flutes out there on the market over all these years.
Despite the above, there is nothing wrong with 8 keys but they are not essential. I play classical, ragtime, baroque and jazz on my 6 key flute and really don’t have much of a problem without the bottom C and C#.
In all honesty, these days I’m of the opinion that Bb, G#, Long Fnat and Eb are all the keys I really need…but that’s just me.
Just giving my opinion based on my experience. I play a lot of ballads and slow airs that, to me, benefit tremendously from the low C. I also like being able to come up to D from the low C# on some tunes. I think the various configurations of added keys has been based totally on economics, rather than need.
How essential keys are is kind of not the point. I have said in other threads that in an electronic keyboard, you might well opt for fewer than 88 keys, but I doubt that you would want a quality piano that did not have all the keys, even if you rarely used them. It just seems prudent to get a proper instrument, but I readily concede that this is an individual choice. I’m just providing what experience has taught me so that the OP makes an informed choice.
there would still be 2 notes added, since without the two foot keys you could meri the low C#… but actually is not that easy to do that… and meri is a bit difficult to do (is the bending note, isn’t it?).
is there any maker that makes a B foot? i find that the low B is required on quite a few tunes, unlike C# and C, that are more rare…
I’ve no idea if any current maker is offering a low B foot on a simple system concert flute - though I daresay the likes of Terry McGee and Chris Wilkes would go there to special order and at appropriate cost! I know what you mean about the tunes with low Bs in though - and there’s a much readier solution - there are plenty of antique German and Austrian 10+key simple system flutes out there with low Bs - it’s just finding ones at modern pitch rather than low pitch and with decent intonation that is dodgy, as you found with your C foot one, Othannen. Viz my Italian Rampone that I’ve posted video and audio clips of using its low B. Scour your antique shops for Rampones - they’re good!
@ Othannen
You need to follow the thread to understand my post.
(Surprising though this may seem.)
Cubbitt was recommending 8 key flute with C# and C keys on the C foot. He mentioned 3 notes. KKrell corrected to say 2 notes with keyed C foot.
Thats where my post comes in. (But I am not saying that is what Cubitt meant. Rather it is how I rationalised his otherwise erroneous statement).
Yes a meri like that is difficult to do at speed but once again look at the thread. Cubitt says he is more into ballads and slow airs (which is what I go more for myself in Irish music) and in these things meri is viable. I am not saying that Cubitt is into meri but the meri option is within the scope of the type of music he likes to play with a full 8 keyed flute.
That is the why of how I came to interpret his statement as meaning low C#, low C and meri B.
talasiga, i did read all the posts in the thread, and after reading your post i read everything again, but still i don’t understand you point…
maybe cubitt meant that with the C foot you could go three notes below D (with meri), and not that with it you could add three lower notes, since you can get a low C# even with a D foot…
. A 6-key would have an Eb key (higher than D, as it so happens).