For those interested, I present the following review of my Pakistani, $39.95, low D flute:
The flute was shipped, presumably from Pakistan, put together in one piece (yikes!) in a fine decorative green cardboard box. It came in a sealed plastic bag (presumably to retain moisture), but the flute was so dry it felt like a toy. It was honestly labeled “Made in Pakistan” and also had another sticker “Biltmore ®”—model name or company perhaps???
My first surprise was that it was quite nice looking – rosewood with nickel silver rings. I think anyone would have agreed with my assessment that it had obvious lamp/wall-hanger potential. My next surprise was that the manufacturer had in no way finished the tone or embouchure holes (which were all way too small based upon visual inspection). They were rough, had some form of black tarry substance in some of them, and had splinters that hung down into the bore (apart from these splinters, the bore was clean and truly was conical — one of my fears would be that it was going to by cylindrical). In it’s initial state, it produced a nice “car door left open a crack when you’re driving on the freeway” sound, and this confirmed my guess that no one had ever actually played a note on the flute before it was shipped from the factory. At this point, my wife let me know that she thought it was traditional for a flute to produce a note and not a sound effect (she is ever so helpful).
After 20 minutes of sanding, filing, and enlarging the embouchure, I did produce the necessary note to prove it really was more than a decoration. The low D was actually quite nice, if a little sharp, and all the other notes were way off tune (my wife described the scale I played as “interesting and kind of modal sounding”—whatever that means). I moved what I would consider the tuning joint apart and the D was right on tune (the flute uses thread wrapped around the wood instead of cork – the thread is cotton and poorly wrapped in case you were curious), and all the other notes were simply flatter than before.
Well, after 4 hours of sanding, filing, and playing the opening riff from “Leon’s Waltz” over and over again to assist in tuning (and because I now hated the first 4 notes of the scale), I realized the following:
·D through F# were now perfectly in tune with G almost there.
·It was now 2:30 a.m. and I would need to wake up in only 3:30 hours to get ready for work.
·I couldn’t feel my lip…
·The McNeilly flute on eBay was now out of my price range.
·I had seriously gone over the “play a new flute 10 minutes twice per day rule”…yet the flute had mercifully not cracked.
Before heading for work this morning, I gave the flute a quick inspection. I kept it in a ziplock bag overnight to retain moisture (after swabbing it out and oiling it before falling in bed). It now had the proper weight and feel for a real flute. There were still no cracks, and I learned the hard way about the importance of waxing the thread (I almost couldn’t get it apart after I assembled it just to look at how pretty the flute was).
I would never, ever recommend such a cheap flute for a beginner or anyone not interested in tinkering with wooden flutes. I may have lucked out and received the only one with all the holes too small which will allow for proper tuning, but I’m glad I took the risk. Unless something terribly goes wrong, I think I’ll end up with a rather nice sounding, but quiet, flute. I’ve already put in over 4 hours of work, and I’m guessing I’ll put in at least double that to get the holes cut and undercut perfectly (in my opinion at least). Overall, I’m pretty happy.
One question though, would Chapstick work as wax on the thread? It’s the plain old waxy type…and it’s all I have on hand at home. If not, what’s cheap and easy to obtain?
