Several questions have been asked about the first flute to buy. Good advice about spending wisely and getting something that will grow with you, etc. I hear people say that they wished that they would have started with a “Blank brand name” and wished that they knew now what they knew then.
How many of you still have your first flute?
What was it?
How long did you keep it?
Do you use it, or just keep it as your first love.
Interesting question!
First real (i.e. conical) flute: Dixon 3 piece delrin.
Kept for about 9-10 months.
Reason for selling (you didn’t ask, but it adds to the thread): Wanted a larger holed flute and a tuning slide (now, I realize that isn’t as necessary as I thought - most tenons are plenty long for tuning up and down).
Eric
My first flute was an Hervieux & Glet. Two breton makers, they make very famous bombards, that’s why I bought from them. I didn’t know anything about flutes at that time, but I played som ebreton music. I had to wait one year (they told me 6 months…)
Actually the flute was really not very good. But as a beginner, I used it during 5 years. I was a poor student and couldn’t afford anything else.
The sound was not that bad, and was very easy to obtain, but it had something I never saw on any other flute: a very sharp low D. The pitch was also quite low.
Then I decided to buy something really serious, and I ordered a 9 key Pratten Aebi. He told me 6 months, I waited 6 months. Swiss precision. Great flute, but it asked too much air for me. I sold it to a giant breton who plays it professionnaly now.
My current flute is my dream flute. RR #821. Found in Paris for a very good price.
I still have the Hervieux, but never use it.
Good topic. My first flute was an Olwell bamboo. I had it for 5 years. My second was an Olwell blackwood Nicholson. I kept that one for five years, too.
My first flute was an old Geminehardt thing with the silver(?) plating chipping off all over the place. I played it for slightly over a year. I actually still have it, though it’s in the trunk of the car waiting to got to a pawn shop.
My first was either a Glenn Schultz or Phil Bleazey Rudall model, depending on how you define it. I still have both. I still play both, although not as much as the Hammy or Olwell. I plan on keeping both for at least another couple of years, at which point I may decide to cull down to 3 or so wooden flutes.
First Boehm flute was an old Artley…I had that from 5th grade until my junior year of high school. I owned three more Boehm flutes after that. My first Irish flute was a 3-piece Dixon. I didn’t have it very long, as I was still focusing heavily on classical flute playing. My first wooden flute was a Burns ergonomic standard. I had that long enough to decide that I was ready to commit full-time to Irish flute playing. So I sold my Boehm flute to finance a 6-keyed Copley, which is now my only flute. (Sorry for the very loose interpretation of the word “first.”)
My first was a Tony Dixon 3-piece polymer. I had it for about a year. It was a great first flute.
I sold it to get my first wooden flute which was a Doyle. Also a dandy.
Sold that one after a couple of years to get my first keyed flute, a Burns Curly boxwood Rudall which I still have and love.
I’ve had several other flutes over the years but that’s the lineal progression from my first to my current.
Doc
Very first flute of any kind was an old clunker of an Artley beginner-model Boehm-system flute that I got when I was 11. It is currently somewhere in my mom’s house, probably far back under a bed or in the back of a closet. That’s where it needs to stay: the case hasn’t been opened since I used this flute as a marching flute in college band in 1986. 
My first wooden flute was a maple Sweet Baroque flute that I bought for college in 1985. An anonymous donor helped me pay for the flute and for two fine recorders, which I still have. I never found out who the donor was, though I think I may know. I still have an occasionally play this flute.
The first flute that I started playing Irish tunes on was my antique German 8-key. This flute was a family heirloom in a good friend’s family; I bought it from his aunt and had it refurbished, and started trying to teach myself Irish music. I recorded myself–I sounded horrible in those days (even worse than I sound now! 
)–and made my first version of my website, which was also great fun.
That’s how my first real Irish flute came to me. Michael Cronnolly saw my website and heard me struggling to play, and sent me one of his flutes to try, and about the same time I got together with the McReynolds family and we started calling ourselves “Fianna” and playing sessions and gigs.
Then I found Scoiltrad and started learning to play a bit better. And I reckon the rest is history: I still record mself, I still have a website, and I still think it’s great fun, even though it irritates folks from time to time.
–James
My first flute was a 2-keyed Hammy. I played that for probably six years, until I got my current flute, a Rudall & Rose (#2196, I think), about six years ago. My younger brother was learning flute, so he had the Hammy for a few years, but he has stopped playing now. I never play it - I don’t particularly enjoy playing it compared to the R&R, and my hands & wrists can’t take the angles required at this point. I have no plans to sell it though. Well, ok, my parents seem to have no plans to sell it… I didn’t really cough buy it myself… 
Deirdre
My first flute was an awful pakistani flute which I kept for about six months until a very helpful old man at a session gently told me what a dog it was. I was so poor that all I could afford was another pakistani flute, but this time i tried every single one in the shop until I found one that was in tune and playable. I’ve still got it because it’s still playable and maybe one day my son might like to have a go. Last year I ordered a Dominic Allen eight keyed pratten style flute in blackwood with boxwood rings and gold plated keywork. I got told the wait would be about six months and it was pretty close to that. I have no plans to sell it ever but I’m thinking about a hammy hamilton keyless just for the volume - not that the D. Allen flute is quiet - it’s got a lovely dark sound with a hard edge to it . Thought of being able to take out a wayward bodhran player across a crowded session with a hard d is appealing - I wonder if they come with sights…
My first flute was an old German student model, restored and tweaked by Chris Abell. I played that flute for almost 10 years, it was a very nice old flute with a beautiful tone…I find myself missing it now and then. I sold it about five or six years ago, and I heard it has since been sold again.
Not much to tell, a very old M&E standard that I still play quite frequently. Its now getting fixed up by Jon C. (because its so old, the tenon joints were loose and I thought some rings would be nice). I wanted to get something that was made of wood and had keys, but I couldn’t pay an arm and a leg. I found one on woodenflute.com, it was a french model flute and had 5 keys. I got it and wasn’t too impressed…I should have moved up in bore/hole size. I still have it and try to sell it now and again. I found out Jon C. was making flutes and I tried out many others before coming to his Rudall copy in Blackwood. I still love the flute and its great having a maker so close by, he just offered to give it a tune up.
First ever was an Eric the FLuteMaker pentatonic “D”. Still have, still play it. It’s perfect for rainy Thursday mornings.
Then came Tony Dixon’s 3-piece. I keep this one assembled and laying on the desk for doodl’n and such. I still like it, but I would probably go a different direction today.
My main flute is a Maurice Reviol keyless. I’m quite certain I’m going to keep this one a while. I like it so much that the only thing stopping me from sending it for keywork, is the time I would have to be with out it.
Good topic.
Byron
sweetheart, i lovingly neglected it.
A deKeyser keyless, which I still have. Got a HUGE crack in the head & barrel, right thru the embouchure hole, the first year I had it. Fortunately I’d bought my little Ormiston by then …
A few years ago I took the deKeyser out, practiced my glueing skills on it, bound the barrel up with bright blue electrical tape, and had a go … it HONKS! (and the blue tape and brass rings on a blackwood flute look quite festive if I do say so myself)
So I think it’s sort of like my old show horse. I’ve grown rather fond of it, and nobody else would want it anyway, so I think I’ll just let it hang around in the pasture.
Well my very first flute ever was a bamboo flute in D which I never could play, that was about 30 years ago and for some reason I just kept hauling it around with me. It spent 20 years stashed somewhere in my sailboat and yes I still have it. When I got hooked on whistle and then decided to try flute I got one of Alans plastic wounders. Learned a lot with that one. My first wooden flute was a Tony Dixon 3 piece in rosewood. Very fine flute which I play almost daily still. Next was a Lehart but we never realy bonded. In fact I think that is the only flute I ever sold. Now I have to many to realy think about. Mostly old German and English guys and a real nice baroque single key made by Luc and a real nice 10 key Cloos in rosewood. I just can`t bring myself to sell these guys though I should realy so I can get my dream flute what ever that may turn out to be. I realy hate to see an old neglected flute go without a home so I just grabbed them when I could. Maybe I will do a beggers flute sale one day. They are all pretty good players. Oh I almost forgot my 4th flute was one of those east indian plastice Ebs they used to sell on ebay. After I changed the cork it turned out to be pretty good also. Still have it and play it though my english Eb is way more fun to play. Ok enough, I have way to many flutes 
Take care
Tom
I have to post since I actually just sold my first flute last week, a Tony Dixon 3 piece from Whistle and Drum that had a C hole drilled by Terry McGee. Had it since August 03. Now I have a nicely budding collection of Irish transverse flutes, a bansuri, and a couple bulgarian kavals. Fun stuff!
My first “flute” was a reaaaaalllyy cheapo shakuhaji (?SP?) that I picked up in a street fair in CHicago for about 15$. I think my ex wife or my parents have it somewhere.
First “real” flute was the good old M.E.R.R. Had it for about. . . 2.5 months now
I’d like to get one of those low Bb or A monster flutes with some keys on it in the near future. But I might not have a job in 4 weeks, so we’ll wait and see.
My first flute was an M&E R&R - it did me fine but I sold it a year and a bit later when I moved onto a Lehart 6-keyed. That just wasn’t the flute for me - but I found my flute, an old Rudall & Rose 8-key about 6 months later and will probably play it forever.
I think it’s really hard, especially if you live in a rural area where there aren’t other flute players, to know what’s going to work for you and I made decisions based on cost and delivery times without being able to play the flutes. That means it’s bound to be trial and error -
:roll: