I’ll post more later, but here are my initial impressions as compared against my other Pratten-style flute, the Seery:
The Hammy is beautiful. The blackwood has a lovely knarled grain running through it. The workmanship is outstanding–this flute is a real work of art, and visually striking.
It is a light flute, and very comfortable to hold. The right hand reach is smaller than on my Seery, no stretch at all required.
I’ll have to do a side-by-side comparison but I believe the tone holes are slightly larger than the Seery and the embouchure hole slightly smaller.
The sound is lovely, clear and penetrating and strong, even from the first blow on. It is a loud, resonant flute, and it rings.
It is a very easy flute to play. The embouchure seems much more forgiving than the Seery.
I’m glad I have the Seery–it has let me work up a good hard “Pratten” embouchure, so I would be ready for the Hammy. And it’ll still be a great flute for playing in places that wouldn’t be hospitable to wooden flutes.
I can already tell you that Hamilton flutes live up to their reputation. Playing that flute for the first time was a jaw-dropping experience.
And I can’t let this opportunity pass to again publicly thank my wife Shannon, who ordered this flute for me as a Christmas present. She is a loving and generous person, and I love her more than anything.
Hamilton flutes are, to my ears, the nicest sounding flutes I’ve yet come across. I’m in line for one of Hammy’s flutes too and my wait should be up pretty soon… hopefully only a few more weeks. Be sure to post a couple of pics or a sound clip or two, you know, a little light at the end of the tunnel and all that!
Nice feeling, eh, that first look at the thing when it arrives? Glad to hear your first impressions meshed with mine.
I was touched by your thanking your wife – mine covered for my Hammy as well, just 'cuz I needed a better flute. Nice to know flute players marry well!
Congratulations, and have fun with it (like you need my permission!)
Gordon
James, you better photograph that Hammy, now, because it’s just going to go dark after some handling. And of course it’s light, my block-mounted 6-key is 13 oz., same as my keyless Seery, so yours should be feather-like. My particular Seery is easier for me to play than the Hamilton, but I still find it an easier blow than most other flutes I’ve tried.
Note the comparison between the Seery and the Hamilton; the Seery has slightly smaller tone holes and a slightly larger embouchure. The Hamilton has a slightly smaller embouchure hole, beautifully sculpturd, which I think is largely responsible for it being a very easy flute to fill and make project. The embouchure on the Hammy is definitely more forgiving, as well.
Wishing you well with the new flute James!!
I had a good blow off it before it left the workshop and found it to be a real cracker. Hours of fun ahead of you. Good luck.
P.S. Conal, I sent you an email tonight, but to recap it briefly, it really is quite an honor for you to have picked me a flute out of Hammy’s latest batch.
Beautiful Flute James! Hammy makes a killer flute, eh? Almost got my hands on one myself a while back (used) but the timing wasn’t right. Have to say though, the one Hammy I tried was a truly steller instrument, have fun with that new beastie!!
I’m sure you’re loving your new Hammy as much as I am mine! I now have a 6-keyed body on order with Hammy, due around December '04. That said, has anyone seen Hammy’s post-mounted key work? He’ll do either block- or post-mounting, the advantage of the latter being that you could have the keys mounted on a flute body you already know and love.
If anyone has pictures of a post-mounted Hamilton (Conal??), I’d love to see them. Also, I’d love to hear any other thoughts on post- v. block-mounting that anyone might have.
On 2003-01-29 22:34, prunci wrote:
He’ll do either block- or post-mounting, the advantage of the latter being that you could have the keys mounted on a flute body you already know and love.
Yes, but the disadvantage of doing this would be that you’ll have to ship that flute body you already know and love back over to Hammy, wait for him to do the work, and then wait for him to ship it back to you. That process would probably take several weeks, and you’ll be fraught with anxiety the whole time. I went through a mini version of this when I got my keyless Olwell upgraded to a keyed. I was keeping my headjoint and getting a new keyed body from Patrick, but I still had to ship the headjoint to him so he could get some measurements off it to be sure the new body would fit correctly. This only took a couple of days since Patrick is not far from me, but still it was a nerve-wracking experience to pack up my headjoint and hand it over to the shipping guys.
My motto: A flute in hand is worth two in the post!
Of course, one way around this problem is to deliver your flute back to Hammy in person at his shop for him to do the work. That could be a lot of fun…
[ This Message was edited by: johnkerr on 2003-01-30 08:41 ]
Actually, I’m going to go pickup my Hammy in july in County Cork, just before the festivals in Clare. In french we say “joindre l’utile à l’agréable”, something like “mix usefulness and pleasure” ?!?
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