I just spent 2 hours this evening calling all the music stores I know of in about a 150 mile radius of Kansas City and didn’t find a single one selling wooden, simple system flutes!
If anyone knows of a store that carries any wooden flutes in my area I’d greatly appreciate a note. All I wanted to do was to actually try playing a wooden flute to see if it was worth saving up for, and I hate to take a chance mail order without playing it first. I was so downhearted those fine, most likely Pakistan made, $39.95 Low D Rosewood flutes over on eBay started looking good…
And, to top it all off, the one store that carried a nice selection of flutes and fifes in the past, Harmonic Arts in Lawrence, closed…and I’m sure I missed one heck of a going out of business sale!
Oh, and one more gripe about the local music store scene - the only whistle choices are Generation, Oak, Clarke Originals (no Megs or Sweettones), and Waltons!
I’m utterly amazed that in a city approaching 2 million people we can’t have one decent folk/traditional music store.
Try to find a session in a surrounding town and see if you can find a flute player who will let you give one a test drive. Some websites have a session search page, search google for Irish and Session.
Or, sign up for Terry McGee’s Roving Ambassador Flute.
It may take a while, but if you don’t have anything else available.
Or, take a nice vacation to place that has several music shops and/or festivals. I made the East Durham Irish Festival my summer vacation this year and it was the best vacation I ever had. I’m definitely hooked.
I realized very quickly that, even here in NYC, there are no stores readily supplying wooden flutes. This is why many players begin with cast-off German antiques and other chancier-quality substitutes for the top-maker flutes. You might find something used here and there for sale or on consignment in a regular woodwind music store or pawn shop, with salespeople that know nothing about them, but there’s no place to just go and try a handful of different flutes by different makers. As much as we tend to put down a Lark in the Morning in SF, or HOMT, in the DC area, they do let you walk about and touch and even play flutes. Not great flutes, but still..
The best way to “sample” flutes is to go to sessions and listen, and – if the player is nice, and most are – try their flutes. If this is also hard to do in your area, try to find a few makers close(st) to where you live and take a journey to their shop. There are makers listed on various sites, Woodenflute and Brad Hurleys’ Irish Flute Guide page, etc., with emails and addresses.
Lastly, listen to a lot of opinions in forums like this and Woodenflute, and take a chance on the best you can afford from one of the more reputable makers.
Music Folk in Webster Groves in
the St. Louis area has Sweets,
a blackwood Casey Burns, and other
flutes too–at least they did
when I was last there several
months ago. Might call them.
Once you get into any instrument that isn’t main stream, even high end acoustic guitars, it’s hard to find one place to try even two or three different ones.
Going to music events seems to be the best way to try lots of the smaller makers. Everyone is usually thrilled to let someone try out their “baby”. As an added bonus, you usually get all fired up to play afterwards.
Alternately, call up four or five builders that seem promising and ask if they have someone playing one of their flutes who lives near you.
Jayhawk -
While it may seem like not having any stores nearby that sell wooden flutes is a big loss, it really isn’t. My experience has been that even the few stores nationally that sell wooden flutes, generally sell flutes that aren’t really worth having.
If you want a good wooden flute there’s really no other choice than to get on a waiting list. Buying from the flute maker is much better anyways because you get to know the maker, buy the flute with a warranty, avoid mark-ups common when buying from shops and generally know that you’re getting a first class instrument and not a reject or one that was dropped or something.
Best,
Chris