Hello everybody, this is my first post here but not my first time here. I visit the flute forum quite a lot just for fun and i always learn something
I own a blackwood keyless pratten Olwell since 2006, i bought it new from Patrick.
Quite soon after that, i stopped playing flute for about 5 years. I didnĀ“t know other musicians for irish music and i got bored from playing alone. Last year I found there were some irish sessions in my city and i began again with flute. Now iĀ“m really addict to it
The time iĀ“ve been playing it i have oiled it regulary and the corks have always been greased. The flute is in excelent conditions. Also, some good players have tried it and everybody agree that it is a very easy powerful flute (not so easy for me )
The issue is that in the begining i didnĀ“t really pay attention to embouchure and just focused in fingers movement (big error, i know). This last 2 months iĀ“m really focusing in my embouchure. Some days i get a big solid sound from the Olwell, but these are, by the moment, rare days. I feel that step by step, slooooowly, i improve my sound, but anyway, depends a lot of the day.
I have tried some rudall style flutes (Grinter, Chris Norman, Sebastien Villoingā¦) and i am begining to feel like i play them more easily. Also i feel like i can play them in a more āsensitiveā way.
This was a quickly abstract from the flute history and my love-hate relationship with it.
So, although iĀ“m not sure about selling/trading the flute (as long as iĀ“m sure itĀ“s an incredible flute and i am hopeful about my embouchure improvements), i wanted to know which possibilities would i have, so:
Maybe i would be interested in trading it for a rudall type Chris Wilkes flute (iĀ“m thinking in 8 keys). I would pay the difference. If possible, i like the flutes with the wide bands or extra strong rings. Other Wilkes may be considered anyway (6 keys to keyless) DonĀ“t know if this would be possible and this is the reason why i write this post.
I also have a Martin Preshaw practice set in blackwood, with silver and box, three silver keys. Almost not used. I can include it in the trade if it may be interesting for the other person.
If somebody may be interested she/he can contact me by PM.*
Thank you very much
Juan
I think you should spend more time with the Olwell before getting rid of it. If you practise your breathing, embouchure, and play a little every day, I think youāll find the Olwell is an easy flute to manage. It doesnāt take a lot of air once you have got your embouchure sorted out. I find the Wilkes I have to be a fantastic easy flute to play now, but in the beginning I was struggling to do it justice as I didnāt have the chops back then.
i disagree with the advice given so far. playing an olwell wonāt make playing a wilkes any easier. if itās a wilkes you want, and apparently this is the case, the sooner you start playing one, the better off you will be. the fact that it may take alittle time to get aquainted with a wilkes means once again that the sooner you get on with it, the better.
Welcome to your first post Juan and hope you find the answers you requireā¦
I too personally play an Olwell and simply love it to bits, though from personal experience with having several other flutes (M&E, McGee, etc etc) in the past, all flutes to tend to have their own little quirkes & characteristics BUTā¦ when you have developed your embouchure enough, switching from flute to flute shouldnt really pose that much of a problem, not in my experience anyway and certainly not from other session players that Iāve talked too! Give the Olwell a really good chanceā¦ keep being patient, real patient and practice hard for a good 6 months minimum, and then see if its really the change in flute that your looking for??? Remember even the most experienced players can make the most basic of flutes sound simply amazing!
Hello again.
First of all, thank you for your advice.
IĀ“m not sure about if a Wilkes flute will suit me more or less than my Olwell, but IĀ“m sure that the only way to know it will by playing one.
About embouchure, I am not lucky enough to be able to try a lot of flutes from a lot of different makers but, somehow, i am seeing with the flutes i go trying, that iĀ“m finding it more easy to get decent sound with embouchures holes that are more little than my Olwell. Also IĀ“m liking more the feeling in Rudall style flutes.
Of course, i can imagine that there is also a āi want what i donĀ“t haveā reason for all this (a lot of this in every forum: bikes, guitars, carsā¦).
As i wrote, iĀ“m not sure about wanting to get rid off my Olwell, but i would like to give it a try. Anyway I see itĀ“s very difficult to get a used keyed Wilkes, and i donĀ“t feel like waiting 10 years, so I think I will not have to decide anything, but I just wanted to know if i would have a possibility.
Why a Wilkes? Good question but I donĀ“t have an answer. IĀ“m sure itĀ“ll be a gorgeous flute, I like the craftmanship i can see in the photos (keys, wide bands, extra strong ringsā¦), I like what i read about them (little air to fill them once you āhave itā, plenty volume if you push them, you can play them āsoftlyāā¦) Also i want to get a keyed flute and, as long as by the moment I am not āin loveā with the Olwell, i think there is no reason for not trying another flute (and wilkes option came bigger in my mind). And, if itĀ“s finally a bad idea, with Olwells, Wilkes, Grintersā¦ you can sell them again without losing too much money. I think itĀ“s an interesting option: to play a different flute until you come across with a flute that really fits you from the begining (first sight love, maybe it is a Wilkes, maybe not)
So, these are more or less my reasons to continue being interested in a Rudall style Wilkes.
It would not have to be a trade if the possible interested person has no interest in the Olwell flute or the Preshaw practice set, just a normal purchase
Thank you again, good to know different points of view. I agree with āRamaā when he says that there is no point in practicing with one flute if you want this practice for another flute. Practicing will always be good, but for mastering one flute, what you really need is to play THAT flute.
I link you a recording from today with the Olwell (tempo is not very good, specially in some parts of the reel). I try to focus in embouchure (it goes and come along the tunes) while playing and i play a bit āstressedā. https://soundcloud.com/juanmcsean/christmas-eve-maid-at-the-well
Regards
Juan
I have both a keyed Olwell and a keyed Wilkes. I love them both.
For the past few months I have been playing the Wilkes. Both men are great makers. I would hate to have to choose between the flutes. You wouldnāt go wrong with either. You should play both if you can.
Then, after about twenty years, decide which you like best. By that time youāll be able to make an informed decision.
I liked your playing on those clips. I donāt think you need much advice from players on this forum. You seem to be doing just fine.
Do you want to challenge your embouchure, something that will take a lot of time, or do you want an easy playing flute where the embouchure will still be challenging, but much less?
Personally, I find Olwell flutes the easiest to play probably out of any out there. I would keep the Olwell for now and get the embouchure down on that. Then in a year from now, you might want to look into a Wilkes, which is a harder embouchure, but you will have that experience from the Olwell, so the transistion might not be so drastic.
IMO, I think you should walk before you run. I donāt know your personality: you could be the guy that loves a challenge and never gives up, or the type that gets disheartened easily and wants to give up after not having expected results at the beginning(I used to be a lot like this). If you are the latter, then diving right for a Wilkes could be the wrong choice. But, going for the Wilkes could make you have a better embouchure in the future if you are up for that challenge.
Before I heard your clips, I figured you were the classic āif only I had a greatā flute Iād be way better" type of guy. (Like me). But I think you have real talent and maybe you would benefit from having a Rudall style flute made by one of what I guess are the ābig 3.ā Iām just average and have actually done better with my Noy, Copley, and McGeeāand most recently with my 3000 series R &R with a Wilkes head. But, still Iād recommend you try some flutes before committing to one just because it was made by the maker whose flutes are probably the most prized ones going. Believe me, the Wilkes head I now have is nothing like the one on the Wilkes flute I once owned. So buying a Wilkes, a Grinter, or a Olwell is not like buying a car.
Iām with Rama and Julia on this one. Youāll progress faster with a flute you want to play.
I have two Olwells, small- and medium-holed. I love them both. Iāve played a couple of Olwellās Prattens and had significant problems with both. I had the same problems with a Hammy that I played for a couple of years. If Iād stuck with large-holed flutes, I would have given up; it wasnāt till I started playing a Rudall-style flute that I started making real progress and decided to stick with it.
Thank you all once more for your advices (and some kind words also )
IĀ“ll continue playing my Olwell and working my embouchure. I think IĀ“ll keep it, and IĀ“ll also be attentive to the āused flutesā market.
Anyway, do you know there is bif difference between first Wilkes flutes and actual flutes (embouchure cut, bore, holesā¦)?
If there has been a significant (positive) change all over their history, when was it aproximately?
(libraryman told his actual Wilkes headjoint is very different from his past headjoint)
About āchallengingā embouchure. I donĀ“t think it should be an important point to consider whether it is or not a challenging embouchure at the begining. I think that the most important thing is what can you have from the flute once you āhave itā.
I feel sometimes, reading some opinions, that a lot of people feel like (always considering āseriousā flutes):
āthe more difficult it is a flute in the begining, the better flute it is in the endā
I donĀ“t think that this rule works. Maybe my āperfectā flute is very difficult for me in the begining or maybe not.
Instinctively I think that if you get a decent sound from a flute from the very first days, maybe it is because it really fits you.
(at least this is what i feel when i try some rudall-style flutes, small hole embouchures or, for example, when I tried a Martin Doyle flute; IĀ“m indeed waiting for a Doyle flute, it allowed me to play in a really really relaxed way. This is also the reason why i thought in the WTT formulation instead of WTB; lot of money involved in the ābig namesā flute world)
regards
Juan
Others will know much more about how Chris Wilkes flutes have evolved. Just to be clear, my old Wilkes was a boxwood Pratten with a fairly large embouchure. My current head is for a R & R that has a embouchure that this even slightly smaller than the original. Thatās why I said it was very different. The smaller one takes more focus but is easier to play, but neither was real easy and I am still working on it. I had a Doyle and they are very good and much easier to get a good tone out of. I would have kept it but I stupidly ordered one without a tuning slide and regretted it. But my experience has been if I donāt like a flute pretty quickly, I never get to. I know many others say that they play a flute that was really really hard at first, but they eventually got it and now think it is fantastic. Never happened to me. But then again, most of these people are way better than me so you might have a different experience. You certainly seem to have a lot of promise. All the best, Steve
Not much to say on the merits of the two makers as I havenāt the comparison of the two flutes but Iām fortunate to have owned and played some very nice flutes and I understand what you mean. I enjoyed your Christmas Eve, you have great breath control and sense of emphasis and phrase (even when the rhythm is sometimes a little bit lumpy). But even with all that puff thereās something slightly unfulfilled about the solidity and depth of tone your getting. It might be just a shaky embouchure like me but it might be that the Pratten isnāt really suiting you. Having the opportunity to try out a Rudall type flute for a week or two might answer your questions.
)
and hope you find the answers you requireā¦
)