Flute and whistle reviews

Irish Flute
1

I’ve been on the board for a while now. I’ve dedicated the last three years of my life to Irish music. The board has enriched my knowledge in so many ways and I would like to thank those people who have imparted so much of their hard won wisdom. (Stevie J, Peter Laban, Jessie K, Michael Eskin, Brad Hurley, etc) After a while I came to realize which people had real musical talent and who were just talking out of their butt. When you sit next to a person at a session you can tell who’s for real and who’s not. I want to learn from the real deal not Kesh Jig whistle boy three chairs down. The problem with the internet is that people can claim to be God’s gift to IRtrad and not know squat and you can’t tell the difference.

I’ve owned just about every high end whistle out there. Many were purchased on the recommendations of C&Fers. Once I have the whistle and try it out and it sucks I’m not taking that person’s advice anymore. I know that everyone has their opionion as to what suits them. That’s fine I would just like people to qualify their review with “I just started playing a few months ago” or “I spend too much time on the internet to practice and I can’t play a lick, but here’s what I think”.

The reason why I’ve posted this to the flute board is beacause I’ve just made the transition from whistle to flute. Its better over here because people who play the flute are often times more for real.

There’s still a bit of this same malarkey over here. The problem being that a flute costs many more times that of a whistle. The first flute I purchsed was an M&E R&R model for around $400. It had received good reviews from the board. I also shortly thereafter was able to get a used Murray for $650. What a difference. The M&E weighed about twice as much and didn’t play half as well. I had to sell it off at a loss. I know that the Murray should be better, but I would bet that many of the favorable reviews were posted by people that didn’t know any better.

That’s just my opinion. What do you think?

Don

(edited for typos)

2

Flute is so devilishly hard to play, I suppose
the people who stick with it
are serious fanatics.
The Murray flute at 650 was
a good deal, I reckon. Best

3

I think you’re comparing apples and oranges. The M&E is really a beginner flute. The Murray isn’t.

You could do worse than buying an M&E as a beginner’s flute. I’ve tried out a few over the years and they weren’t bad, certainly better than some of the other low-end flutes on the market. They’re not in the same league as a Murray, but I don’t think they’re meant to be.

There’s a market for beginner flutes: some people decide to get a flute to see if it’s something they want to pursue, but they might not be able to spend $1,000 or more just to find out. But folks need to recognize that any new flute under $500 or so is going to have some compromises and limitations compared with the professional models.

4

The usual reason a whistle “sucks”, especially a “high end whistle”, is not because of the whistle or the reviewer, but because of the whistler.

I know that everyone has their opionion as to what suits them. That’s fine I would just like people to qualify their review with “I just started playing a few months ago” or “I spend too much time on the internet to practice and I can’t play a lick, but here’s what I think”.

A “review” by its very nature is a personal opinion. There should be no reason for a person to qualify anything about it. I take reviews as a FWIW or on a conditional basis and not just on one persons input. If a person that fits the descriptions you propose out there can get the whistle to play well…

5

I’ve never played a Murray, so I don’t know how to compare it to others. I have and do play an M&E RR for now…I’ve always mentioned its weight and clunkiness as qualifying asides, and compared to a Noy or a Hammie or Olwell it is a lesser thing in craftsmanship, fingering, responsiveness and tone. Still, for what it is, I like it -I’ve found the tone and responsiveness to be good for the money. I’ve got better sticks coming soon, so it won’t be my first choice if I keep it. I agree with Brad about the M&E being a beginner’s instrument, but I don’t think that it’s a bad flute at all, really. I’ve played far worse.

Just my $.02 of malarkey. :wink:

6

The usual reason a whistle “sucks”, especially a “high end whistle”, is not because of the whistle or the reviewer, but because of the whistler.

Right. Jessie just took some heat over this same issue. I know that she’s just a bad flute player.

The deal is that everyone wants to say good things, but no one will say anything negative. I know that’s its very subjective, but come on now.

Here’s an example: Overtons. I’m sure that the low whistles are very good (Never tried one) The high whistles are great to play once warmed up, but they clog really easily. I’ve seen posts to the effect that you just “have to learn how to play them” and “you need to learn how to breathe right”. Well, it took 2+ years on the board before that came out. On the other hand, a Sindt doesn’t clog very easliy and plays consistently well. You don’t have to be Mary Bergin to figure that out. Go to the sessions back east. I didn’t see one Overton. I’ve never seen an Overton at a session. I’m sure they’re out there, but not very common. I’ve seen plenty of Sindts and Copelands.

7

I agree with the comments above - the higher end polymer flutes are good, often good enough for most of us, but they are not represented as being the end all be all of the flute world. They fill a nitch, just as Casey Burns’ beginner flute does and Ralph Sweet’s flutes, too. Not everyone has an open wallet budget, and for many folks (myself included) the extra $250 you spent isn’t something I would consider a small issue (heck, that extra money alone would pay for one of Casey’s new beginner flutes).

While your Murray is probably a wonderful flute, I’d never take it canoeing on a 100 degree day above 55 degree spring fed waters, and I’d hesitate to throw it in my backpack to play over at the park when it’s 35 outside. You may not canoe, spelunk, or play on breaks in the middle of winter, but I do, and to me your Murray simply wouldn’t meet my needs. To use a car analogy - my Ford escort is plenty good enough for me as a car, and my Seery flute is plenty good enough for my flute needs.

That said, much more so than on whistle, the PLAYER is the key ingredient as to how a flute sounds much more so than the flute. Give a good flute player a good workable flute, and it will sound great. The key point here is that if I had your Murray flute, I’d lose out on nearly half my practice time and I’m willing to bet, for me at least, a year on the Seery would show much more growth than a year on a flute I’d play less often.

Overall, the point I’m heading toward is that I don’t think people post reviews raving about certain flutes just because they are full of “malarkey” as you say - their reviews reflect their current situation (experience, expectations, finances, allergies, arthritic conditions, personal preferrences, etc.). You need to use your analytical ability to determine what you believe about the reviews posted.

Finally, you may not mean it to, but your message comes across as blaming others for the instruments you’ve bought that seem less than optimal in your opinion. Remember, some of the greatest whistle players of all time played on Generation Ds, and some great flute music has been played on some pretty cruddy old, inherited German flutes…and you may well think Gen Ds and anonymous German flutes are terrible.

Eric

8

Don, I have your M&E, and I think its a great flute.
I think you get a Delrin flute for the fact that it’s indestructible, a thrasher.
I had a slidless Olwell that I really loved, but no way would I take it in the car, plus the fact that I would never leave is assembled.
So I really think these are flutes for deferent needs, I don’t think anyone here would recommend you get an M&E over a Murray for your main flute.

9

I appreciate everyone’s comments on the M&E vs the Murray. I don’t want anyone to get sidetracked though. I’m not concerned with the fact the M&E doesn’t meet my needs and its does someone else’s. I know that many very good musicians have M&Es.

My main point was my frustration with people who use the internet to put themselves forward as something they’re not (i.e.; a good musician worthy of giving out good advice to those of us who need it) If you’re a competent musician and you prefer flute XYZ no problem I can go with that. In a session you can sort out who’s who. Not so on the internet. Its like those yuppie punks out there who go buy the expensive Harley, get all the gear and poof! Instant cool. It just bugs me.

I admire the great musicians I’ve had the privilege of playing with. I know that years of practice and hard work have gone into the playing of the deceptively simple music. With the internet you can get your IRtrad leather jacket with no trouble at all.

(edit: fixed spelling)

10

Don,

I think I misinterpreted your initial post. Sorry about that. I do agree with you that the internet is a dangerous place where anyone can become an instant expert - that just seems to be the nature of the internet. I also homebrew and am an avid aquarist, and the amount of terrible advice given with righteous authority on brewing and aquarium sites is remarkable (please note, the brewing and aquarium things are separate - my beer is perfectly safe to drink, I promise, just ask my fish :party: ).

Still, if you’re isolated in the ITM world, sometimes a message board is the best you can have, and it can lead to living contacts who you didn’t realize live in your area, too. I also like that restorers and makers sometimes frequent this board, and I’ve bounced questions off of them, via regular email, that have been exceptionally helpful about the qualities of certain instruments.

Eric

11

You have summed up the entire problem with the Internet: the lack of accountability. I know how I play, as do some other people (many of whom don’t frequent the internet). Clips aren’t even all that great a way to tell much of anything; if the clip is in any format that’s a manageable size, it’s not got the fidelity to show much of anything.

From my perspective, it’s interesting to read the comments about flutes and whistles. I think the reviews tell a lot more about the players than they do the instruments, in a lot of cases. I have made the mistake of buying an instrument based on a review once . . . once. That’s all it took, and playing said instrument explained the reviews I’d seen from that person over the years.

Zero accountability. We can all come onto these pages and post with relative impunity. The internet makes huge amounts of information available at light speed, but the veracity and value of that information is often suspect. People used to spend days working at composing a simple letter; now we shoot off emails as though they were nothing. They end up being nothing in the process.

Stuart

12

Then you should get your advice from those that you admire and trust and just drop the internet advice issue all together. Why come here at all or bring this negative issue over from where you claim it is so horrible? THAT does not make sense to me. Or is this just a warning to those that may want to help you to just shut up… :roll:

13

A horsey piece of wisdom I apply in these situations, and in fact to most everything in my life anymore, is from my old trainer. In fact, I’ve come to take it as gospel:

“Whenever someone tells me they can ride a horse, I say ‘Great, but how many times have you fallen off?’ If they say ‘never’, I know they’ve hardly ridden. On the other hand, if someone says ‘More times than I can count’, I know that person’s a real horseman.”

I think Eric’s on to something, there – the caveat with situations like this is that we do have a lot of people, all at different levels and places in their playing; all thinking really, really hard about something they care a lot about. [Sometimes maybe thinking too hard and not playing enough, but that’s another story.] [And yes, I’ll include myself in this group]

So maybe a lot of us haven’t got as much mileage. Some people haven’t "fallen off’ as much as others. That doesn’t mean anyone’s setting out to mislead anyone per se, but … the problem is, my only frame of reference is my experience – and your only frame of reference is yours. And since we can’t sit next to each other and hear ourselves play, there’s a lot to take on faith in situations like this.

And then there’s that whole perspective thing. To a beginner, a certain player might sound pretty good. To me, they might sound awful. To my teacher John Skelton, they might sound pretty awful, but much better than last week. :slight_smile:

More horse stuff: In her fantastic book about some fairly simple-yet-advanced horseback riding stuff (it’s all Zen to me), Mary Wanless talks about “conscious incompetence” – the stage where we suddenly realize how little we really know about our craft. The funny thing is, people can be quite successful at that craft before they ‘hit the wall.’ But hit the wall most of us do, and the good news is (after the required period of intense despair), that’s a catalyst for change. And then comes the lifelong cycle of conscious incompetence and learning; the two are indeed intertwined. It’s like going up steps. You think you’re great, and then … epiphany. You’re terrible. But you improve. Then you think you’re great, and you’re ready to show it off to everyone, and BOOM. But you improve again. That’s what learning’s all about.

Meanwhile, there are people on this board who’ve hit the wall once or twice, people who’ve hit it a thousand times, and people who maybe haven’t hit it at all … yet. That’s part of the risk in a big forum like this.

re: Instrument Reviews. It’s so unfortunate that we often can’t play these these instruments without shelling out for them, esp. if we don’t live on the East Coast or in Chicago where there are more concentrations of people who play. [The even more unfortunate thing is that a lot of us can’t learn from those players either, since we’re stuck in our respective hinterlands.]

So we come to rely on these sorts of places for at least some advice. But what we do with it is up to us. As they say in a certain 12-step program, “Take what you like and leave the rest.” I think that’s something that applies well here.

So. I don’t know why I wrote all that, except that I am fascinated by how these web boards work. They can be an invaluable resource, a great source of information, wonderful support, and a balm for the soul in lonely times. And they can also be enormously frustrating! I’ve gotten all that from this board, and hopefully will continue to do so.

BUT. I will always ponder how often someone has fallen off before I run out and follow their advice. As should any of you with mine. :slight_smile:

Okay. I’m off to feed the horses and then go see Return of the King and hear this goofy James Galway whistle part everybody’s on about. :wink:

Thanks for everything. You guys are a blast.

cat.

14

Now now, big breath. It’s not really that. I think Eric’s just expressing frustration. It’s not that all advice gleaned from the internet is bad; it’s just that it’s a lot harder to use your bull$hit filter here. And, like’s been mentioned, there are a lot of people who exist in relative IrTrad vacuums, and this is their only source of information.

It’s just another take-it-all-with-a-grain-of-salt thread. There’s nothing wrong with a dose of reality every so often, now, is there? There are particular problems with people in every internet venue who become “experts” and just aren’t. Maybe I’m one of them . . . :slight_smile:

Stuart

15

Stuart,

How do I edit my post to make it read just like yours? Thanks for the breath of concision. (Conciseness?) :slight_smile:

16

Cathy - nice analogy between the horse world and the flute world. My wife swears everything can be explained in horse related terms (we raise or son that way)…I think I like polymer flutes because I can hit the wall really hard, get back up, and keep on playing!

And Stuart, I think you’ve misquoted me or mixed me up with Steven or with Don…

Eric

17

There’s that old New Yorker cartoon: “on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” (in fact I think Glauber was using that on his avatar, right?)

It would be great if people added a disclaimer about their level of experience when giving reviews and opinions, but even that’s not to be trusted. Just go to a music camp like Swananoa or Augusta or East Durham, and you’ll see plenty of barely intermediate players who rate themselves as “advanced.” And the number of years you’ve been playing isn’t necessarily an indicator of skill and ability. I have a flute student who’s been playing only since September and he’s already better than some people I know who’ve been playing five years or more. And I know a whistle player who is playing jigs and reels, and playing them amazingly well, after less than five months.

Clearly as Stuart said, it’s wise to take everything you read here (especially the stuff I write :slight_smile: ) with a grain of salt.

18

I’ve seen some very good information in the reviews both here and on the whistle board. Just as with a flute, though, to some extent what you get out depends on how much effort you put forth. You DO have to know the reviewers, and on the flute board it really doesn’t take that much time to go back to page 1 and read at least a representative number of all the posts. From that you can get a sense for who is really knowledgeable, who’s a novice, who has what prejudices, and all that. That’s not really possible on the whistle board, due to the volume of posts and more due to the fact that a lot of the most knowledgeable do not post that frequently.

I’ve posted quite a few reviews to the whistle board, and one to the flute board. In the flute review I was quite patent about being a novice player writing from that point of view, because I do think it’s useful for people to make it clear if they’re not all that experienced.

I’ve also mentioned a few times on the whistle board that I’m not crazy about Overtons, in part because they clog a lot.

19

Hee hee.

:slight_smile:

20

The danger of these forums is not that it is what it is, but that some of us seem to forget that it isn’t the whole world. It’s, in fact, a very small, overly focused, often myopic, piece of it.
Most musicians, ITM or otherwise, play their instruments in the real world, not in cyber-space. Getting through a gig, or learning a tune, or playing music in general, is not a discussion to be had with virtual strangers. It’s a real thing, playing music in real time, with flutes as our particular vehicle.
What we have here is a chat-room on a specific topic, open to everyone on every level, and that’s a fine, good and sometimes addictive thing. I like to hear what other people think and, lord knows, I like to tell you all what I think. Some of it even makes sense. But still, while I can tell you all which flutes I personally like, and give advice on which path I think a beginner should take, which flute they should buy, etc., it really should be a given that all of us should be also out in the real world, playing our instruments the way we want to play them, listening to music we like and trying whatever instruments we come across and deciding which suits our real tastes best. I know this is hard for some of you in more remote areas, but, ultimately, playing with other people, and the music, is what we’re really talking about.
Finally, if it pisses anyone off that some of us might be full of it, realize this is a drawback of an internet forum. Sometimes the nubile 16 year old cutie is a 50 year old bald guy. I drop out off this forum periodically, when things get to me, and then, when I’m in the mood for BS – and occasional insights from old and new friends – I come back.
Then they get sick of me.
Gordon