First one, the seller adds, ‘The flute is playable throughout all the scales, can’t say if its in tune as I don’t know. This is a brand new flute, origin for a respectable flute maker in Pakistan who supply many flute makers in Ireland, No hairline cracks, I guess to ferrels and keys are nickel plated.’
Second one says, ‘the intonation is not perfect so I would say that there is more ‘work’ to do to play the flute in perfect pitch. it is possible on the inside to see some slight inconsistency near to the top of the main joint. i am not sure what kind of flute it is originally. the mouth hole has been shifted but not sure apart from that. i think that the ferrels and keys are silver, not hallmarked or anything.’
The first one comes from a seller named flutesareus (or something close to that)…and the description has been removed (unless you received your information via email). With a seller name like that…it sounds like they are in the flute selling business and the lack of description is troubling.
The second has a description saying it’s a reworked flute. These can be rather good. He admits the keys are not ideally placed, but if the tone and playability are good most ITM doesn’t need keys. It also states it was played by a musician, and that’s promising.
A “beginner flute” will most likely be the last flute also.
There’s enough to learn about playing flute
without attempting to figure out if the issues the beginner is having
is the flute or the lack of experience.
If your idea is to see if you will put the work
into learning flute the buy a Tipple.
I’ll not be buying them myself, just thought the additional information might be useful to someone, given the lack of description in the ads (I just emailed them a few standard questions).
With a seller name like that…it sounds like they are in the flute selling business
The chances are that you’ll be getting something quite less than optimal and I wouldn’t recommend risking that kind of money where you could get a perfectly playable key-less from a reputable dealer in the cost range of what you are seeing there.
Now if they were really low cost like in the 50.00 range and you had a desire to tinker they might be a fun learning device.
Most likely what you’ll learn is what is bad.
I know Jem has come across some flutes that were similar and he was able to somewhat bring them in line. I think they were key-less though.
I find it interesting that they are block mounted. I haven’t seen many of those yet. That the seller thinks the keys are not in a good place, whatever that means. The seller also seems to no be able to play it so I can’t see how he/she could judge that.
So much work goes into making block mounted keys… of course at the cost of dollar a month salary ya got nothing but time to do it wrong.
Flutesrus is actually a manufacturer and we use his Mull Wilk 5 key flutes and cant praise them high enough, they also manufacture their own Piccolos and Concert Flutes Belleisle Brand it’s all on their site. http://ernemusicsupplies.com/fifeanddrummuseum.aspx
This family also have the biggest collection of flutes on the Island http://fifeanddrummuseum.org/default.aspx Its not been updated but they have an Alladins cave of Flutes looking at the site could make you go blind
