The mysterious ring flute reappears in a new guise:
Actually, the Ring Flute is about to get less mysterious. I’ve been in contact with it’s maker who seems to be a really nice fellow, and I have one of the flutes coming my way. I’ll report on it fully when I receive it and have a chance to play it for a while.
$499 
For that much money, I’m perfectly content to let it remain a mystery! 
I don’t know… how in the world would you make this out of wood?
You can’t bore it out like a straight flute… maybe make it in halves
glue them together? Just seems dubious.
P.S., Paul, have you ever used tinyurl.com? It keeps you from having
to post incredibly long URLs that keep the forum from word-wrapping :roll:
The regular model in ABS plastic is $39, which is something that folks here might consider if the thing plays well. See: www.ringflute.com
Do we know anyone that has one that we could ask? 39 bucks is a bit more reasonable, even if only for the novelty of the thing… 
Do you play a normal flute?
Something that is that cheap might be worth looking into and learning, though, I.D., even if one was not flute-inclined. 
If I recall, Native American Flutes are made in this fashion. As long as the craftsmen are very careful, it could be a sound way to do it.
Of course, one has to wonder what the wood they use is for it. To get it shaped just perfectly into a ring is beyond what I know of woods. Then again, there are sound reasons why my wife won’t let me near the power tools in the house.
It wouldn’t be hard, but an experienced woodworker would have to do it. It definately would not be an amature endeavour.
My father does professional woodworking, so I’ll ask him what he might use to build such an item…
The wood could probably be anything at all, it would just depend on what kind of a sound you wanted, much like NAFs and mandolin building; the hard woods resonate bass pitches and the softer woods resonate higher ones. In mandolin building I use a combination of the two.
Check my original post: I have one on it’s way to me as we speak and will report here when I’ve had a chance to play with it a bit.
Yes, I do play regular flute (Irish, orchestral), so the embouchure should not be a problem.
I’m thinking that for the wooden ones, you’d use a router to route the bore in halves, then glue the halves. A good friend of mine makes superb NA style flutes that way.
Eliyahna has one. One or two comments here
about people that have played it. I’ll wait for brewerpaul’s review though.
I was disappointed to see the ring flute was simply a standard flute bent back on its self and not connected back on its self internally. I would be curious how one would make a flute that was toroidal internally. It would be interesting how one would go about figuring out where to put the finger holes! I have some ideas I could try out, so some day I might unveil the toroidal pennywhistle!
Rod
Ring-shaped whistles, on the ocarina principle, made of
terra cotta, in South America, are usually offered on
eBay for very little. I doubt they are in tune.