I love my Terry McGee Pratten Perfected keyless flute!
Love mine as well!
Heh heh, thanks guys.
It’s always nice to hear from people who have found your flutes suit them. And it’s a good reminder to those who don’t feel happy with their flutes. Keep looking, the ideal flute for you is out there somewhere! Never pass up an opportunity to swap flutes with other players at sessions - that’s how most people find the flute that works best for them. Worth attending a summer school just to have that rich field of flutes to try out. (And you never know, you just might learn something too!)
I apologise for being a bit quiet recently. It’s been an interesting year. I had been contemplating a graceful “retirement”, traditionally embarked upon at age 65 in Australia. I failed dismally. Still making flutes (working on #1000 today), just signed on to maintain Australia’s National Carillon for another 7 years, lost 29Kg (64lbs) over the past 12 months and am now at my ideal weight-for-height. Hitting age 69 on New Years Day.
We moved about nine years ago down here to the NSW South Coast, an area with only one other Irish musician. But in the last 6 months, the rest of my old band have moved down here too, and we’ve started up a monthly session at the Steampacket in the nearby town of Nelligen. Looks like life hasn’t done with me yet…
Hope you all had a fun Christmas, and are looking forward to a great new year! I certainly am…
Terry
Merry Xmas Terry Good to hear you’re still active and making flutes. I’m nearly the same age as you and retired a few months ago. Still playing Irish trad and now have time to play old-timey and blues guitar, and ride my Harley. Do you have any access to R&R serial numbers? I have a register online and have so far 324 flutes listed. I’ve written to Michael Flatley but he doesn’t respond regarding his serial numbers, neither does Patsy Maloney. Another source has Davies’ records, but can’t access/find them as he has so much stuff packed away.
Hello Terry, it’s great to hear from you again. I’m glad all’s well with you down in New South Wales and you are still making flutes. (I thought you’d turned to concertinas at one point!) I often use your website as it is a great source of knowledge and information regarding simple system flutes, especially the history and evolution of the instruments.
Season’s Greetings and all the best for a prosperous new year. 
All the best!
Good to see you’re still busy, Terry, if quiet online! Merry Christmas from “old” North Wales!
congrats Terry esp. on losing all that weight, impressive
so nice to hear all is good !!! best wishes for the coming year, e.
Glad you’re still kicking, Terry! I’ll hit 69 in a few months, seems to be a good age. Lost a few pounds last year too, but seem to have gained most of them back this year! Ah well…
Thanks, all, for the kind comments.
Dont, in regard to loosing and keeping weight off, I measure my weight most mornings, using a scale with 0.1Kg resolution. My aim was to lose 100gms (3.5oz) per day, based on the advice that it’s possible for most people to lose between 0.5Kg and 1Kg per week (about 1.1 and 2.2 lbs per week) comfortably. It didn’t bother me that I knew your weight can vary more than that for all sorts of reasons. The important point is the message it sends.
If I failed, I’d tell myself “you have to try twice as hard today”. And invariably lost more the 100gms and more!
If I succeeded in losing the 100gms, I would tell myself, “see it isn’t that hard, I can do the same today”.
I graphed the whole endeavour using Excel. Hard to argue with facts like that! And hard to welch out on!
The big issue is the lifestyle change you need to bring. Value your fitness. Value your flexibility. Value smaller serves. Value salads!
I used a lot of information from the CSIRO Well-Being Diet books we had lying around the place to guide my weight loss. But if I were going to embark on such a mission again, I’d sign up for their new-fangled on-line course:
https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/
Note the unusual feature. If you succeed, they give you your money back!
Oooh, look, New Year’s Day is coming soon. A perfect opportunity to make a New Year’s Resolution…
Guide me to your R&R serial number listing and I’ll see if I have any data you haven’t got.
Guide me to your R&R serial number listing and I’ll see if I have any data you haven’t got. Terry McGee
Thanks Terry - My R&R register is here: http://steampacket.ownit.nu/Rudall%20Rose%20Carte%20flute%20register.html
I started the register in May, 2016. There are 326 flutes so far. Last week I started to add some photos of the Rudall flutes listed.
About ten years ago, I was working and became quite the flute collector. I have owned flutes by almost all the big name makers and still own 2 R & Rs, and Nicholson Improved, some beautiful French flutes, and a number of contemporary flutes. I often wonder why I bought so many because my first really good one is still my favorite to this day. A Blackwood McGee 5 key 5088. It plays great, is comfortable, and has exactly the clear tone than can be pushed to get a reedier sound that I like. In fact, I think I liked playing it so much that I got a bit hooked and kept wanting to experiment with different woods, sounds, etc. So I am blaming the G.A.S. I developed on Mr. McGee. If the 5088 hadn’t been so good, I think I would have contended myself with fewer acquisitions. Oh well, I don’t play as much anymore, but I always know which one I will grab first. After that, one of the R & Rs. Nice to have and sometimes I really get one going, but I really don’t need anything more than my McGee 5088.
Decades ago I used to regularly attend various Folk Festivals and Traditional Music Festivals and what not, and a common site was a group of fluteplayers standing in a tight circle passing their flutes around for all to try.
Next they’d start swapping the headjoints!
You make some interesting discoveries that way. Sometimes you find that the grass isn’t greener elsewhere, sometimes you encounter amazing flutes.
About registering R&Rs, for many years I played a boxwood, sterling, and ivory R&R made at their address which as I recall put it in the c1830 period. I don’t know where this flute is now, I sold it many years ago.
It looked just like Joe Burke’s but mine was in better condition, with lovely bead-shaped rings on either side of the tuning slide, which by the way had a thin sleeve of boxwood covering the metal (not flat rings and exposed metal as on Burke’s).
I have very nice closeup photos of my old R&R, but they’re in colour slide format. I need to have those slides digitised.
Hi Richard
Have a look at this: -
Does this look like the flute you remembered?
Martin
It does, but the tuning slide is pushed closed so I can’t see whether it’s sleeved with boxwood.
And I don’t know what the “graduated tuning slides and stopper” is.
The cork of mine was connected to an ivory post, partly threaded with a narrow shaft at the end which protruded through a threaded hole in the ivory cap. Perhaps that’s what the listing is talking about.
I knew every nook and cranny of that flute. I played it daily for around a decade and treated it very well, with swabbing after every playing and monthly disassembly for cleaning of the keys and oiling of the wood.
My flute had a lovely tone and was superbly responsive, however it didn’t have that Pratten power so I sold it and went with a c1860 flute by Koehler & Son, London. Casey Burns measured that Koehler & Son and said the specs were nearly identical to Prattens of the same period. Casey made a new headjoint and that was my flute for many years, a terrific player.
I am pretty certain this boxwood flute had a lined tuning slide.
Can you recall the serial number of your flute?
#1795, which is the flute I highlighted had been in the collection of Finchcock’s keyboard museum, in Kent. When the museum closed last year all the contents were sent to auction. #1795 sold for a hammer price of £3500, which with costs would mean a bill of £4500! I have no idea how long it had been in their collection.
I am particularly interested in this very specific design of Rudall and Rose flute. I own a D and an F flute in this design but in Cocuswood. There is a left hand cocuswood model (#3555) in the Dayton Miller collection and two low Bb cocuswood models (#1456, eight key, and #2707, 6 key) in the RNCM collection in Manchester. I am always interested to hear of others.
Talking of boxwood Rudall & Rose flutes I just found out today, the name, just by chance whilst looking for something else, of the owner of not one, but two pristine boxwood Rudall & Rose flutes with patent heads. Finally, I’ve been looking and asking around for a few years now. 
Well I’m pleased to hear that Mr. McGee seems to be taking orders again. 
Does anyone have any idea on what estimated waiting times are like for his keyed prattens?