OK, you simple-system purists – cover your eyes, because this review has the word “Boehm” in it more than a few times.
There. Consider yourself warned.
A couple of weeks ago David Copley loaned me a prototype of a wooden headjoint he’s been tinkering with for modern Boehm flutes. Myself and two other recovering Boehm players tried it out recently, and I think we’re all in agreement that it’s really nice.
The Design:
It’s blackwood with a raised lip plate area, a rather squareish blowhole, and a clever cork-lined wooden sleeve into which David fits a silver tenon arrangement that lets him customize the tenon to a particular flute body without affecting the wooden part of the head.
The Flutes We Tried It On:
A Mateki MO-06 “Gingko” – too tight
A thickwall Miyazawa – too loose
A Brannen – not as loose as the Miyazawa but still loose
An Armstrong 80-B circa 1979 – too tight
We knew the fit was a crapshoot going in as this was a prototype made for someone else’s flute. But again, since David can custom-fit the tenon, we were philosophical about it.
The Testers:
Two flute-major grads, both with advanced music degrees
Me (a music-school dropout)
Though increasingly obsessed with Irish tunes on the simple-system flute, we all still play silver-flute-type-schtuff here and there for weddings, various churches, small classical groups, community orchestras, etc. I don’t play baroque/traverso (no more flutes!!) but I think the other two do.
The Method:
Probably insufficiently scientific; in fact, purely subjective. (Though hasty recordings were made for later analysis.)
The Sound:
Wow! I’d never tried a wooden headjoint before, so I wasn’t convinced there’d be that much change, but there was. We all heard a clear difference in the way it made our flutes sound (pity it can’t do anything about that bothersome key noise, but one can only work so many miracles in a day 
). On each flute, we observed a definite change toward “warmer and woodier.” The sound still wasn’t as mellow as an all-wood simple-system flute – maybe 70% – but it’s a nice in-between for sure.
But what impressed me (and I think the others as well) is how responsive the head is. Although it didn’t fit any of our flutes perfectly, it nevertheless spoke clearly and confidently (albeit a step and a half low on my flute – hey, I got a low Ab out of it!). The upper register was no harder to achieve than on our silver heads (I hit a C4 with no trouble beyond a little rustiness from 20 years of not playing C4), and the lower register was sweet and warm but you could still put an “edge” on it, too. Volume and projection seemed just fine as well – I for one didn’t notice any lessening in volume; just basically a warming of the tone. And I really didn’t expect it to be as free-blowing as it is.
The Price:
Really good. (ask Mr. Copley)
The Weight:
Light. It seemed to balance just fine on all the flute bodies.
The Purpose:
I’d imagine this head would be most popular with silver Boehm players wanting to get a more wooden tone for their classical applications without sacrificing responsiveness. Secondary would be people who want to play tunes on their silver flutes without jumping into the deep end of the simple-system pool. Like I said, it doesn’t sound like a simple-system head without a lip plate, but hey, it isn’t one, and it doesn’t pretend to be. I suppose it could function as a replacement for wooden heads that are cracked beyond repair or otherwise unsatisfactory, but as it doesn’t have a tuning slide I’m not sure how that’d go.
THAT SAID, it’s a really nice piece of work, especially for what Dave’s thinking of asking pricewise. I still can’t get over how well it speaks, and how responsive it is. I think I can safely say we were all three very impressed and agree that for someone looking for a nice, affordable alternative to the Abell and other wooden heads, this could be a very happy fit.
Yeah, Dave! 
Edit: Edited to fix the C3/C4 misteak.
)
If middle C is C1 then the C we were referring to was actually C4.
Anyway, thanks for solving that little mystery.
