I play a McGee R&R with the new traditional-look modern embouchure design; got it from Eilam, on this board, and am happy with it.
It is (surprisingly) loud, flexible, responsive; a very good flute. It sounds like a trad wood flute, not like a Boehm; better players than I am get a big, ballsy Irish tone out of it.
It’s easy to play, and the embouchure is more forgiving than some others I’ve tried. I suppose one could either look at this as an advantage or a disadvantage. Since I’m not looking at this flute as a “beginner” flute, but as a full-blown instrument, I don’t find anything wrong with it being easy to play, especially since it’s capable of such a wide variety of tone colors, including the reedy Irish sound most of us are after most of the time. If you’re looking at a McGee as something to play on your way to a Grinter or Olwell or Wilkes or something, maybe you’d want to play something with a slightly less forgiving embouchure. I don’t know, but I expect there are as many opinions about that on this board as there are members. . .
If I have any reservations, it’s only this; it’s an elegant, thinnish flute, and I’m finding that a bigger, meatier flute is more comfortable for me to hold over long periods, for some reason. I may eventually pick up a different flute as well, to experiment with whether the size of the thing (in diameter) makes a big enough difference for me to consider switching to a different instrument. For now, I find my polymer more comfortable to hold, but of inferior sound quality to the McGee.
To that end, a minor hijack: Anyone know of a Rudall design that’s a bit meatier than Terry’s flutes? Or will I have to go to a Pratten (like Hammy’s) for something with more size?
About female flute makers, Desi Seery’s daughter, before
her untimely demise, made the bodies of his flutes;
Dave Copley’s wife, Marlene, makes the silver
keys.
Maybe there are some women who just do the
whole job–that I’m not aware of them means little.
There are women whistlesmiths.
If I may speculate, it seems that one of the ways
that people get into this business is that they
are trained in a hard science like metallurgy,
or they’re engineers, or they are machinists.
But they have the souls of artists, they love celtic
music, and so they begin to make flutes
or whistles. Well, for whatever reasons,
women aren’t so well represented in these
disciplines.
The women I’ve known who were craftsfolk
came into it through fine arts, as in silversmithing
and ceramics. FWIW.
Desi made the Delrin flutes brought into the U.S. by Frank Simpson, and the wood flutes, keyed flutes, pipes, whistles, etc.
Natasha was learning the trade, and she setup a shop in the Galway area. She was providing flutes to Custy’s, and she was indeed turning the bodies for those. Desi was teaching her how to cut the headjoints, and so he was still voicing all flutes individually. Desi’s son is taking over Natasha’s lathe and may now be getting involved.
Jim, I have to disagree: I think inviting negative comments is absolutely appropriate in this situation. After all, we live in a world of “Caveat Emptor”. If I’m going to spend several K $ on a flute from a maker half way round the world (he’s in Australia, I’m in North Carolina), I certainly want to know the pros and cons from people who have played them.
But your point about tact/diplomacy is well taken. I hope we can all be civil!
Just to play the devil’s advocate for a bit ( [icon_devil_local.gif] ): Are there any negatives or reservations any of you have about his work?
This, for me, is asking for trouble. Requesting that the messages
be sent PM is fine. Again I’m not opposed to criticisms
being expressed onboard too, in the course of
a discussion.
I decided after a long time to go with a McGee flute.
There are several reasons for that.
1- No one can show me as much information about flutes as Terry does
on his site.
2- I had the opportunity to play the Euro RAF for a week.
3- As far as I know few if any makers has several old flutes in their collection AND has made a world tour to investigate play and measure old flutes.
4- I went to Michael Eskins site and listened to his flute clips and prefered the sound of his McGee before the Hammy and M&E.
The greatest thing of all was the chance to play the RAF because after that Terry and I have a common reference to center our discussion around. I chosed a different flute than the RAF, not because I didn´t like it but because I am after a slightly different sound.
I had never played a transverse flute before the RAF, but after a couple of hours I could play both octaves about as good as I play on my low whistles.
IOW Terrys flutes are relatively easy to play, don´t know if that is purely a good thing.
To Pan,
All of the top makers have done their research all over the world, have owned antique flutes themselves, have plenty experience and knowledge, but they have established themselves thru their own name and reputation.
To everyone,
Please everyone, order McGee flutes, that’ll free up the waitng lists for the other makers.
Okay!
So, quite a few respondants had plenty of kudos for Terry’s flutes, 2 at least had reservations, and Jim doesn’t think we should talk about drawbacks. Somewhere in the thread someone wisely pointed out that what may make a flute good or bad is really the individual playing it (by which I mean, their personal style and preference).
I think we have exhausted the constructive aspects of this thread, at least for me. One important thing I did learn is that there is a roving ambassador flute out there that I need to try.
I believe he argued that if you wanted to talk badly about a particular maker’s flute, the least you could do was to tell us what you didn’t like about them, rather than just state that they “suck”. Very sensible, if you think about it…
I’ve tried Terry McGee’s Euro RAF, and it’s a very nice, and extremely easy to play flute.
My primary flute is a Rudall-Carte style McGee 4-key (two-part body) and I can’t say enough good things about it.
Its very light in the hand, well balanced (has a short foot), sounds and feels right between the Rudall-style flutes I’ve played and the Hammy I used to have.
Fits my physique and playing very well, what else could one want in a flute.
