I recently had Hammy Hamilton build a custom headjoint for my 1857 Metzler flute. I bought the instrument from David Migoya a couple of years ago. The flute orginally was designed for high-pitch, probably A453, and I never really felt like it played as well as it could when pulled out for A440. I had pretty much decided that I’d just play it as an E-flat flute, when it dawned on me that it would be possible to have a custom headjoint made for it, optimized for A440.
I’ve always liked the sound and playability of Hamilton flutes so about a year ago a contacted Hammy to inquire about the work. A couple of months ago, I sent the instrument off to Ireland for the custom work.
It arrived back yesterday and I’m extremely pleased with the result. With the new headjoint (partially lined) the instrument has a very full, loud, dark tone, and is very easy to play. The tone is much more focused and resonant than with the original headjoint. Bottom octave is very much improved. The intonation in A440 is right on. He was able to match the original cocus wood pretty well and silver ring style. His price and delivery times were quite reasonable for this kind of work.
I’ll work to get a recording up in the next few days.
Here’s some photos of the flute with the original and new headjoints:
http://www.pbase.com/eskin/metzler_flute
Cheers,
Michael
