I am selling two Wooden Flutes, with the specifications below. The reason for sale is that I have now commenced with a slightly different system of flute now (cylindrical bore), and therefore no longer can play both. I ordered these flutes two years ago, from top Scottish Luthier George Ormiston, having received them at the last part of 2009. Had I been not been offered, and commenced with my current flute by “Rudall and Carte” (an 8 key simple system on a cylindrical bore - requiring quite a few different fingerings, and different approach) 8 months ago, then there is no doubt that I would certainly have played these professional quality flutes for the rest of my life. Here are the specs: Materials: African Blackwood, with Sterling Silver Keys, Ebonite ring mounts, Sterling Silver lip plate.
Head joint : African Blackwood, Solid 1 piece unlined, undercut projection with Sterling Silver lip plate.
Foot joint : Boehm system with C sharp and C natural keys
Keys : 8 keys, pin mounted, quiet sealing pads on all 8 keys
Pitch : D concert pitch, with C keys on foot joint. Lowest note possible - C.
Case : twin fitted hard case
I ordered these flutes as an identical pair, after much discussion and development with George about keywork/wood/tone/projection/tuning. They are truly beautiful players and it is a very very reluctant sale. I cannot keep several flutes, as much as I’d like to!
The flutes took around 2 years to arrive after ordering, as George is in very high demand indeed as a flute maker. However, these flutes are on offer for sale immediately, and at the same price as I paid for them.
If they would make me sound anything like yourself then I would sell my car to get them…but they won’t
BTW - if you are in Moray this coming weekend we have our Nairn Feis (workshops, ceilidh, Charlie MacKerron and a few other talents gigging on Thursday etc.). A surprise appearance and demo of the aforesaid flute would be top notch!! Be great to push the flute a bit up here.
We shouldn’t really hijack Calum’s FS thread… (sorry!)
Here are two pictures of what is now Calum’s RC&Co. flute before he had it, and he is now using a different (metal, I believe) head-joint with it. I think there may have been some past C&F discussions of this flute when it passed through my hands for overhaul a while back. The fingering is normal 8-key system except for some variations in the 3rd 8ve (which Calum uses to a significant degree!) - nothing dramatic or outlandish and due chiefly to the different bore characteristics, but if you practice as hard as Calum does to perfect advanced technique, it isn’t very handy to switch between fingerings - you want to stick to a consistent set of 'em!
Tried it on the thumbnails above - no dice. Thanks anyway, Denny. If you can do it by using the quote function and editing the right things in to the right places, please do!
not the page that contains the larger image…the larger image itself
in Firefox you can right click the image (on the page) and select Copy Image Location
Hi Stephen,
They do have a naturally very reedy / dark / powerful sound, which I am very fond of indeed. Of course, with all flutes, the player needs to coax this out of the flute with some gentle persuasion
I won’t be in Moray this weekend sadly, but will be at Feis Rois at the end of March, and also Feis Moray in May - perhaps see you then?
have fun in Nairn and send my best wishes to Charlie.
Calum
Hi Othannen,
Yes indeed… but this is another topic
I will post some information at a later date perhaps, for those interested in this little adventure in the ‘bore world’ I’ve had.
keep in touch,
Calum
Hi Jim,
I have a really low quality camera phone picture only at present. I’m happy to email this to anyone really interested, but I’d rather not post it here as it doesn’t really do the flutes justice. I get back to ‘the office’ in just over 2 weeks, so I’ll take some snaps with a proper camera then.
Cheers for now,
Calum
hi all,
after a few more prompts for photos, I’ll do what I can this weekend with my camera phone!
I’d really like to get some nice pictures as they are beautiful flutes, but I’ll do my best with what I’ve got as I won’t be near a decent camera for a wee while longer.
I’ll try and post something today, on this weekend if possible.
Hi radcliffe,
Thanks very much! It was just using a camera phone actually!
For the ‘wooden rings’, actually they are made of Ebonitte - which means they are very much stronger than Wood, but vastly lighter than Silver. This helps the balance of the flute, but it just so happens that Ebonitte is the same colour tone as seasoned African Blackwood, so matches the over all design perfectly!
For those of you in the South of England / London area, the last of the two Rudall and Rose model 8 keyed, blackwood and sterling silver, flutes will be residing in “just flutes”, Croydon, London
