dixon polymer three-piece

Irish Flute
1

I went to a philosophy conference in Bloominton Illinois.
Well, really I pretended to go to it, in fact I went to
the Whistle Shop. Thom happened to have a Dixon
three piece there and, well, the devil made me buy it.

I bought one of these from TWS a couple of years ago
and sold it later, couldn’t play it very well.
I’m a lot better now, maybe the dixon is too.

My impression is that it’s a demanding flute to
play, not terribly so, but enough to explain why
I was having trouble with my first one. On the
other hand, once you have a firm enough
embouchure it has a lovely sound.
I don’t know Rudall Roses (I play Prattens)
but this seems to be
one–small holes, smallish flute–and instead of
the loud, open sound of Prattens, it has a solid,
focused sound that is quite interesting. I suppose
wood would be better, but this is so far the
one polymer flute I’ve played that really seems
to sound like wood.

As mentioned the embouchure seems to me demanding,
it doesn’t play very easily, though I can play it
easily now. But it has this interesting quality that
when you press on it, there’s more there.

I find it a bit confusing; instead of the beginners’
flute I expected there seems to be a good, inexpensive,
somewhat demanding Rudall Rose with an
interesting and rather complex sound.

What are your impressions?

2

Hi Jim,
1st off I have to say that I’ve never played a Dixon 3 piece but I think you could have hit on something here. The Dixon is always (AFAIK) thought of as a beginner flute, you’ve tried it as someone who isn’t a beginner, I wonder if people starting out on flute maybe get a sound on it and then assume that to develope their sound they need to move on to an “Advanced” flute without ever really trying to push it to see what it’s capable of. You know the scenario, spend more money, get a wooden flute, one of the big name makers, as played by so & so etc. Maybe it all comes down to getting to know your flute. Just a thought.

Cheers, Mac

3

Jim - Your comments echo those I’ve made on the board many, may times. The Dixon is a very good flute. Are you saying you like it better than your Seery? Personally, I prefer the Seery, but I really don’t think it’s because it’s a better flute but just because I prefer the Pratten style. I also agree the Dixon is very Rudall & Rose-ish in nature.

Eric

4

I’ve just been playing the dixon for a few hours.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head: the Seery
has the big, loud, open sound of a Pratten,
the Dixon is a bit quieter and has a more
focused and complex sound. I think I like
the Seery better, but the Dixon is doing
something Prattens don’t do, I think, and
doing it rather well–though I’ve never played
a wooden RR.

Neither the Dixon nor the Seery is a particularly
easy flute for beginners, I think. I had less trouble
originally with the Seery than I did with the Dixon,
but plenty of people have trouble with the
Seery.

Now that the Dixon costs five bucks more than
the Sweetheart maple, I think the latter is a
better beginner’s flute–plays very easily, sounds
very good, needs little care, readily available.

5

My impression is that it’s a demanding flute to
play, not terribly so, but enough to explain why
I was having trouble with my first one. On the
other hand, once you have a firm enough
embouchure it has a lovely sound.

As mentioned the embouchure seems to me demanding,
it doesn’t play very easily, though I can play it
easily now. But it has this interesting quality that
when you press on it, there’s more there.

I find it a bit confusing; instead of the beginners’
flute I expected there seems to be a good, inexpensive,
somewhat demanding Rudall Rose with an
interesting and rather complex sound.

What are your impressions?[/quote]

Jim---- A while back, I went delving into the C&F archives to see others informed ideas on an affordable beginner simple system flute that wasn’t throway quality. I’m pretty much in the boondocks where I live. I decided upon the Dixon 3 piece polymer and haven’t been disappointed. (o.k. I know I don’t have much to compare it with…)
Though it was a bit tough going at first to get the embouchure, it really shaped up to a nice sound. I’d come to this from the boehm flute, so embouchure, I knew, just needed practice and time to get the right ‘mouth muscles’ going.
I find that sometimes I concentrate so much on a tune or mechanics of playing that I forget about the tone (duh). Once I hit myself over the head a few times (this flute is tough enough even for contact with such wooden items) and concentrate also on the tone, it really sounds great. I will likely get a wood flute in the future, but I don’t think I’ll sell this one.
Funny, after playing only the Dixon for a couple of weeks, I tried the boehm, and my embouchure was all out of joint for it, so I put the silver flute back in the case :laughing:

6

Yes, one of the things that led me to sell the first
dixon I had was that when I played it till I could
get a consistent tone, I lost my ability to play
my Copley. The Seery didn’t have that feature;
it complimented the Copley and vice versa.
Now I’m far enough along that I can play
most anything.

It’s fun to think that the Dixon is a good,
simple, inexpensive Rudall Rose.

7

The Dixon is a dandy I agree. I think the polymers have a great deal to offer. I have owned and sold both a Dixon and an M&E R&R. Both were sold in fund-raising frenzies. I hope someday to own another of each.

Doc

8

As most of you know Ive got a wooden Dixon 3 piece. I never thought of it as being an Rand R style flute but maybe it is. I know when I first got it back in what, I dont know Feb. or March I couldnt get a thing out of it. I had been playing one of Alan Mounts wounders and realy thought I had the emboucher thing figured out. NOT! Eric got his poly Dixon around the same time and mentioned how focused his emboucher had to be to play the thing. So I perservered and was finally getting some nice tone out of it. It was a relitively quite flute but I thought that was the nature of the beast. Well when I got my long awaited Lehart the Dixon was left in the humidore and for three week It was Lehart. When I pulled the Dixon out and put it together it was a hole new flute. I mean no more milk toasty parler flute. It just came alive. Now grant it I had to do some changes to my emboucher in order to get the Lehart to play and that thing is a monster. I mean the best instrument I have ever held in my hands but, as it turned out it also upgraded my little rosewood Dixon. And talk about complex sound. It is so interesting to compair an unlined head to a lined head. Both the Lehart and my old 8 key Eb are lined and the Dixon is not. The only difference I can find in the sound is some kind of metal crispness if that makes any sence. No that didnt make any sence but there is a difference in the sound but not in the voice. I mean the Dixon will groul and spit and snort and you can get that reedy sound if you want. When you realy look at the Dixon you are looking at the simplest simple system flute there is. It also seems to have a larger bore then the Lehart but I could be wrong cause I haven`t measured them but it looks like it does.
Anyway the Dixon is a great flute, very under rated in my opinion. Also what I am finding is just how much a flute will teach you about itself and flute playing in general.

Tom

9

There is a metal crispness to the sound of a lined
head, I agree. Polymer probably doesn’t sound much different,
being polymer, I wager.
And every indication is that the
Dixon needs a focused embouchure to
‘come alive.’ Which is why I don’t
see this as necessarily a great place to
start playing the flute.

I don’t know how much Tony D’s wooden flutes
cost. Can’t make sense of the website;
but a blackwood or rosewood equivalent of
the polymer, if there is one, would be
interesting to play.

10

As I recall Jim it cost me about 325 bucks to my door. That was with a soft case I ordered extra. I talked to Tony yesterday and it will be a few months before he gets back to making the wooden ones. Very busy guy. When I was talking to him about ordering the flute in the first place I went for the rosewood because that was his preference and the one he played. I have no regrets. If you want to try it maybe we could trade for a short period. The only thing I would be concerned about would be humidity. I keep it in a humidore and about 70 to 75 percent humidity. I live in a very dry area in the winter but I sure would like someone elses take on this sweety. Anyway I dont know if he has changed the price or not on these but I dont think so.

Tom

11

Awfully nice of you! I’d better decline–I have my
hands full as it is. Just rapacious greed for more
flutes, ya know. Thanks, ol buddy.

12

I dunno about calling the Dixon an “R&R-style” flute simply because it has small holes.

Apart from the fact that R&R’s seem to come in many flavors, with both large and small holes, I think Tony’s design is his own, and not a copy of another model.

I have a Dixon 3-piece and a R&R copy by Terry McGee, and the holes on my McGee are considerably larger, the tone is bigger and louder, and more complex. I don’t think it’s only because the McGee is wood, though that may be part of it; I think there are bore characteristics that give the McGee a more complex, darker, “Rudall-esque” sound. It’s also more flexible; I can play with a nice reedy sound at session, and get sweeter sounds when I desire (though admittedly, I play trad far more often than I delve into anything else). The McGee is much more powerful, too, for want of a better word: louder, with more presence, more foundation in the sound.

The Dixon, I think, is a good flute for the money, and is itself pretty flexible and capable of growing a bit with the player, but perhaps thinking of it as a Rudall, or Rudall-style flute, is not entirely accurate. It seems almost more like a conical version of small-holed Baroque flutes, or something, but that’s probably not quite right either (I don’t play a Baroque flute, though I’d love to try one day). Calling a Dixon a Rudall-style flute might be like calling George W. Bush a Lincoln-style Republican: they may have each been President, and Republicans, but . . . well, you get my drift.

I like my Dixon more than I like W, but that’s a different topic . . .

If anyone wants to buy my Dixon Rudall-copy, let me know!

13

Thanks. Po lil ol me, I don’t know nothin about
RandRs, so I was guessing.
I’m a bit enchanted with the Dixon tonight,
I’ve played Prattens, and from what you
say, playing a real RandR would be
very interesting. Best

14

You’re saying that the Sweetheart maple is easier to blow for someone totally new to the whole flute and embouchure concept? It might be that for a complete beginner, not having to dwell too much on the embouchure detail would make things a bit easier :stuck_out_tongue: . But I think if someone has some past experience in an instrument such as a silver flute, piccolo, or fife, they would be more up to the Dixon than someone who’s never even tackled an embouchure. (or how to spell it :roll: )

15

Yes, I mean a complete newbie to transverse flutes.

16

I wasn’t sure whether to post this here or in my “Dried-up head-cork” thread but decided here since it’s more related to the flute than the dried-up cork.

Have all of you checked the position of the headcork? Though my 3-piece Dixon was previously owned, the whole time I had it (until the head-cork dried up) the cork was pretty close to the embouchure hole. Since one isn’t supposed to go mucking about with the head-cork I let it be.

After the cork dried out and I had to boil it and when I replaced it I put the cork at the suggested position, 7(D/6) from the center of the embouchure which is 14/16" on most flutes. It’s like a different flute now. There is more volume and I can push it to the edge more than I could before. Before I could see the bottom of the cork in the embouchure hole. Now that I have it at the correct position I have to tilt the flute to see the cork.

This phenomenon could have been exclusive to my flute but I thought I might let the other Dixon fans know.

Cheers,
Aaron

17

Aaron - the cork that came with my Dixon was a sorry piece of bark. I removed it, set it the proper distance from the embouchure (it came too set too close to the embouchure in my opinion - but it wasn’t right up against the hole like yours was), and it was/is a wonderful flute.

Eric