I ordered a boxwood D from Casey Burns, however John Skelton, in a workshop at the St. Louis Tional, persuaded me that one should play only one flute in each key. The devil had made me buy several D flutes, so I called Casey and shifted the flute to C. It arrived yesterday and here is a preliminary review:
This is a gorgeous flute. Casey is working with extraordinarily beautiful and clean boxwood and his simple design for all-wood flutes complements boxwood perfectly. The wood is a lovely yellowish golden color with occasional dark streaks. This is complemented nicely by purple tenon thread (!) The workmanship is very good. I’m now getting a good enough grasp of embouchure cutting to recognize all the undercutting that Casey put into this one.
The flute is about as easy to finger as a D flute, I have no trouble playing it at all. Also, it is about as responsive as a D flute. I have a sweetheart C, and Casey’s flute is easier to play. I will have to report back later to say something more about the difference between boxwood and Blackwood. However I can say this much about how the flute sounds. First it is very powerful, I will have no trouble playing it on the street. Second it is perfectly in tune and it goes easily into the third octave. Third, It has a deep beautiful woody tone. Jesse K. has tried to capture the way in which Casey’s embouchures differ from those of Olwells, say. The flute does not ‘play itself,’ one is intimately involved, and I find with Casey’s flutes that there is a seductive sense that something more is there in the flute which I can bring out by improving my blowing. The Bb flute I bought several months ago is continuing to open up, week by week.
I have no trouble making this new flute sound like an oboe, it’s easy to make notes dance between the octaves. (As you have guessed,
I have exceeded the daily break in limits, however the world
may end at any moment and it’s prudent to eat desert first.)
Gee, this is a swell flute. It is solidly professional, loud, resonant, it is some sort of contemporary boxwood-classic, and it is about as good-looking as any flute I’ve ever seen. Jim
Jim, Thank you for the review. Could you compare the Bb to the C just a bit? How much more difficult is the finger stretch on the Bb? How does the Bb sound? What sort of tunes do you play on it?
bruce boysen
Which model did you get? (I have a boxwood Rudall-derived from Casey which I love.) I’m just curious as to how his other models play compared to the Rudall-based instrument.
The Bb is about three and one half inches longer than the
C. It is signifcantly harder to finger. I can simply play the
C as if it were a D,however it has taken me some
getting used to to play the Bb.
However the Bb is playable. The ergonomics help considerably.
I am now able to play the Bb fast, jigs, reels, etc.
I play ITM, Bach tunes, everything that I like.
It has a dark, woody sound,
the blackwood headjoint is involved in that, I think,
it’s a nice
looking flute, the mopane body looks nice with the
headjoint, and the thing is impressively long. You can see a picture of my very flute at Casey’s
site, it’s the top one in the picture, John Skelton’s
is beneath. I can’t compare it with other Bbs,
not having played them, hwoever I was very
impressed by the fact that John performs on it.
Anyhow I like it very much and play it often.
Deep, sonorous, easily playable in the second octaves,
I can go up to the third octave A without much
trouble, but I need to become more fluid in the
fingering in the third octave. At a certain point,
after several months, the flute started becoming alive
in my hands and that was pretty thrilling, gvien
its size.
the C is brighter and louder, and I need to get
to know it better before I say much more.
I’m about 5 ft 8 inches, medium hands, and I’m
62, if that helps.
It’ isn’t the Rudall, it has an oval hole and a session head,
as does the Bb, by the way.
I wanted a Rudall D, but John S. persuaded me that
I must stick to my present Ds. I asked Casey what
embouchure he recommended for the C
and he said this one. The volume will be helpful
to me, I think, as a street muscian. This really
can be heard.
How do you find the circular embouchure hole on
your rudall. Maybe you can tell us more about
boxwood sound. Best, Jim
I guess the embouchure hole is circular, though not as circular as that of a Baroque flute. The hole is as large as that on my Copley flute. I love this boxwood flute. It’s not quite as loud as my Copley blackwood, which I also “love”. I’m finding, though, that the boxwood flute can go louder now than when I first got it. I’ve just gotten used to playing it, I guess. I don’t have any trouble switching between the embouchures of the Copley and the Burns.
The Burns is very well in tune throughout both octaves. As Jessie pointed out in her review of the Burns folk flute, the cross-fingered c-naturals are spot on in their tuning and have a strong sound.
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