of course you can…
Don’t let it stop you from buying a new to you flute in the next two months though. 
kinkda like that, eh
Terry -
Starting with the assumption that the old head is not faulty - a leak, or a ruined embouchure, inner degradation, etc. (the earlier post about the new head improving the player’s ability to fill the flute seems less a matter of a new embouchure cut than something else) - isn’t it likely that the actual ‘improvement’ in sound is as much a matter of the player’s expectation, a modern player hearing the sound they want or expect to hear from an old flute with a replacement head?
Modern players come to expect certain tones (Irish?) from their flutes, accustomed to a certain responsiveness - in fact, this whole thread is, in many ways, similar to the tuning threads we’ve had before. A new head alters the sound from the original, adjusts the responsiveness - changes an old flute into an essentially new flute. The appreciation of the flute’s qualities are then given to the new head, as if it’s fixed some problem, when it has in fact merely changed an old flute into something more comfortably modern. Again, this is assuming the old head isn’t in some way compromised and clearly needs to be replaced in order to make the body sound properly.
Now, I’m not sure which side of the fence I’m on in this, myself, actually - I’m not taking the old-is-good, don’t-mess-with-it argument, although I do think there are plenty of high quality antiques around that certainly don’t benefit from a replacement head. Still, in general, is it not often more just a matter of bringing an old flute closer to our comfort zone?
Thoughts?
I kind of wonder what the Baroque crowd thinks/does.
I think Gordon makes a good point. Assuming the flute is in good shape, would the original owner from 1850 like the original or modified flute better? (Probably no way to find a conclusive answer to that.)
I think I.D.10-t’s on to something: as far as I know, most newly made Baroque/Classical flutes are reproductions/replicas, whereas many (most?) Irish flutes aren’t.
Perhaps that’s partially because a Baroque flute will be used to play the music of its time, so the two are a good fit as is, whereas 19th c. English makers didn’t make flutes for Irish traditional music–they made it for English Romantic music (or whatever the classical music of the day was).
Many makers are now making flutes specifically for Irish music, so a case can be made for certain deviations from the historical instruments. (Although some trad players will argue reproductions/replicas are superior to new models.)
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
To muddy the waters, in the thread that Lar started on improving a Pratten, I reported a switch between an Olwell head to another modern maker’s flute. My perception is that both the playability and the sound changed. Player is the same, body is the same, it’s not an issue of old vs new. I’d cheerfully say that the head can make a difference.
For amusement, I put the original R+R head on the modern flute, and it too greatly changed the sound (sweeter but less blatt).
So I’d say sure the head can change the sound. Still I can’t help noticing that when I record myself on different flutes, the changes in sound aren’t so dramatic that I could identify the flutes in the sound tracks without knowing that the cat miaowed when I was playing the Watson, and that I messed up the turn when playing the R+R. As much as anything, it’s how the flute feels to me that matters.
Cheers,
Hugh
I play several different types of flutes and I know too well that playing an “Irish flute” does not automatically give you an “Irish tone”. Thats something that I need to do (embouchure angle and other factors) and which I have only recently started doing because I now understand that what people call “reedy” is what I would describe as “nasal”.
Incidentally the same approach on a bansuri (very shallow chimney) gives me a chinesy result which is not a result I like in bansuri. In contrast, I find that all flutes with liplates or deep chimneys are amenable to successful “nasal” as well as “rounded” articulation and such tonal contrast is, for me, one of the joys of playing such flutes.
I didn’t say that a player naturally, or easily, attains an Irish tone from a flute directly; don’t take me out of context. But many modern makers (master of alliteration today) making conical flutes do focus attention on their flutes achieving a particular tone, which tends to favor Irish playing. This would be a distinctly different goal from, say, the goal of a 19th C. maker and the original flute. So, back in context, changing the head of an old flute for a new one whose maker and/or client favor an Irish tone are not so much improving the old flute - assuming the old head was not otherwise faulty - than adapting it for modern play. 'Twas all I was saying.
Gordon, that looked to me like the pot calling the kettle black.
Whilst I honed in on one portion of your post as an epigraph to my post
the thrust of my post addressed your thrust because I discussed the reedy outcome on other flutes as well including flutes with lip plates.
That an olden flute head filled a particular need well does not mean that it cannot be surpassed by a modern head which fills an alleged new need providing that the modern head can also fulfil the alleged olden need as well.
ow, I’m gettin’ dizi…
I think we’re probably in agreement here, but speaking in such a way as to sound argumentative… 
I was proposing that some makers replace flute heads more to fit modern sensibilities (most often for trad players), and so it becomes a matter of definition - what is improved? There are some amazing old flutes out there, imbued with something more - an intangible element - that many moderns lack. A new head solves perceived issues, but more often tweaks the flute to simply respond in a more comfortable way for the modern trad player, and loses its unique qualities in the process.
That said, and with a major nod to modern makers/restorers currently out there (and not to backpedal too much!) there are also probably far fewer old flutes around with such unique qualities than us romantics would like to believe… Some old flutes clearly, or simply, need help, and a new head might just be the ticket…
Interesting thread to be sure.
Recently I’ve dealt with two flutes, one old, one new.
The new Powell wood flute needed a new headjoint due to the fact that the other cracked; Powell said we’ll give you a new one. I am totally blown away by the way this new one plays. I’m the same player, of course, but it brings out a combination of colors that I never had before, even though I think of myself as both a colorful player and one who is able to get anything she wants because of how I use my embouchure. So, even with all that going, I got a new ripped head (or hole cut, really? same material and presumably everything else the same and loving it no end.
My latest embouchure hole discussion point is that my repair guy found a better way to fix the crack in my old Hungarian Stowasser that went across the embouchure hole. The earlier repair job meant that the reform design was actually expanded because of the filler used to repair the ivory, essentially altering the shape of the hole. Now, with his new method, it’s where it was originally, or damned close. It used to be a bit of a beast to tame and now seems to achieve a more dolce sound if I want, yet keeping the same power.
All of that said, I can well understand our issues grappling with the percentage of what the tone hole can do for the flute and us. I frankly bristle a bit when people say that I have this unique and beautiful tone and then, very quickly ask “what kind of flute do you play?” It just begs me to say the name of the flute but then put it on the table and say “how do you like it’s sound now?..” Let’s at least figure that we are surely more than 10% of what is coming out of our flutes, via the embouchure hole or whatever else makes the flute “good” or not 
Best to all,
Adrianne
Adrianne Greenbaum
http://www.klezmerflute.com & http://www.klezband.com
Professor of Music, Mount Holyoke College
http://www.fluteworld.com or http://www.cdbaby.com
Powell Flutes and Miyazawa Flutes Artist
<<I was proposing that some makers replace flute heads more to fit modern sensibilities (most often for trad players), and so it becomes a matter of definition - what is improved? There are some amazing old flutes out there, imbued with something more - an intangible element - that many moderns lack. A new head solves perceived issues, but more often tweaks the flute to simply respond in a more comfortable way for the modern trad player, and loses its unique qualities in the process.
Actually, IMO, dead on. I have been asked many times over if I wish to have any of my old flutes given the gift of a new head joint, be they an old wood Boehm or switch heads of any of my German-design simple system flutes. To me, modern improvements are extremely subjective and can totally remove the sound of the original flute and a sound that is still to be valued regardless of our current trends. I would always vote for changing to entirely different vintage/antique flute rather than changing the cut of a hole or fitting another headjoint onto an old flute. I’m one who values the various sounds of old flutes and, after all, how else can we know our history if we don’t play the flutes as they were intended, given of course, that we can make the flute play as close to what it did in its time. Unfortunately, time does apparently alter the sound, with changes in the wood or other such uncontrollable features. I’m not scientist but I do appreciate what was when it was and I enjoy hearing all the variations in tone no matter how experienced the player is to control the best the flute has to offer.
<<
That said, and with a major nod to modern makers/restorers currently out there (and not to backpedal too much!) there are also probably far fewer old flutes around with such unique qualities than us romantics would like to believe… Some old flutes clearly, or simply, need help, and a new head might just be the ticket…>>
Yes, also true. But only for financial reasons would I want to fuss with a flute that needs such help. Just let it go and move on
I am, however, in favor of taking a modern flute and going head hunting. If I use the flute as my orchestra flute or modern recital flute, I’ll want the best sound for current ears - including my own - and I want it to project and I want to do it with the best of my own abilities as a good working relationship.
Thanks for pitching in, Adrianne, and welcome to C&F flute forum (I see you’ve only recently joined and begun to post). I find your klezmer fluting amazing, by the way. You certainly are a master of the simple system flute.
Cheers,
jason
Then pipe down and stop overbreathing - when you hyperventilate you bamboozle yourself! You know it goes to your head. Perhaps you need a new one?
back to the two heads joke are we!
Joke? Zaphod?
I thought we were talking hyperventilation diziness, not pan-galactic-gargle-blasters!
that’s better…Don’t Panic 
I have a couple “from the hip” thoughts on this, but as I’ve only done a handful of embouchures (but over 1000 fipples) this is very much a grain of salt type comment…
The first is to agree that the target a simple system flute is aiming at may have moved over the years. I know the concert A has changed, and I suspect the “tone” desired has changed as well. Blame it on the introduction of guitar distortion pedals if you like . I know Terry has got the Fourier analysis thing going and could maybe comment of the old vs new flutes in terms of primary/secondary/etc. peaks?
And second, sound generation is chaotic, meaning it’s very non-linear. The butterfly flapping in Brazil makes a thunderstorm in China deal. The butterfly didn’t make the thunderstorm by itself, it takes lots of other conditions to come to pass, but the point is, small actions produce large results, and it’s not practical/possible to compute your way from one to the other because of all the missing data.
I can demonstrate the effect of putting walls around my whistle windows. Just move my tone ring. The tone gets more complex and the low notes are easier/better/stronger. The upper end of the second register pays the price. So a deeper window (embouchure?) favors the reedy low D many players seek. With a flute you can lip the upper octave(s) in more so than with a whistle. And you can change the size of the embouchure with your lip as well by sliding and rolling in and out. Perhaps it’s the pursuit of the reedy D that has made a taller chimney a plus on the modern Irish flute?
In my experiments I have been liking the result when I drill my embouchure vertically, but off-center, toward the side away from the player. This does several things: 1) if creates the “undercut” for the blown edge in a very controlled way. 2) it makes the blown edge longer, which lengthens the average chimney height. and 3) it makes the chimney height asymetrical.
Is all of this good? I’m not sure yet. I do have to undercut the other three “sides” of the embouchure still, but I can leave the blown edge pretty much alone and not risk taking the sharpness off the edge or changing the angle.
I have a long way to go before I’m comfortable saying I know how to cut an embouchure that I like on the first go. I normally drill it under size then sneak up on the final dimensions thru trial and error.
Oh, and I’ve had a devil of a time with external lip plates and lined heads because the wall of the embouchure ends up with perturbations. Since I’m not working with flutes of great value, I just coat the inside of the embouchure with epoxy or CA glue, filling in the cracks and giving it a nice shape.
One thing I’m wondering about once I coat the embouchure is the effect of boundary layer adhesion. Should the wall be glass smooth or should I leave a 400 grit surface? A 200 grit surface? A 100 grit surface? The closer I look, the more questions I see.
Sigh.