Reconditioned German 6-keyed flute for sale at you-know-wher

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Oreo
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Reconditioned German 6-keyed flute for sale at you-know-wher

Post by Oreo »

See the eBay listing link below for the flute I am selling. It is a WEIKERT, stamped with a model name of 1st QUALITY. It was probably made before/around 1900. It has a metal lined head joint and the tuning slide is also metal lined. This plays quite well in tune to modern pitch, when pulled out as I have it in the pictures. The lowest note is D. And I will describe that more below.

I often recondition clarinets and have a site named http://clarinetpages.net. So I don't often recondition or sell flutes. I think this flute could be of interest to you readers who want a keyed flute for Irish music, but a soft one.

I own several Irish folk flutes and wanted one with keys. As is, this plays more like a classic or baroque flute. If it were modified, it would work better for Irish flute music, as explained below. The embouchure hole is 11.1mm long and 9.76 wide. My favorite Pratten style flute has an embouchure hole 12.3mm long and 10.5mm wide.

Typical of a Baroque flute or later flutes, the Eb key needs to be held down for the E to be in tune, and the F# is flat. (This was so Baroque players could lip up for F# and lip down for F natural— not using the keys this flute has.) But the F# on this flute is in tune with the F natural key depressed, or lipped up like Baroque players did. The C# is slightly flat, like Baroque flutes. The highest D on this flute wants to be fingered just like the middle D.

What the above means is this: This flute plays with a soft sweet tone, like a Baroque flute. It would work well for a Baroque flute, if the player only used the Eb key and ignored the other 5 keys. Or it could be used for later classical or folk music using the keys. This is the kind of music it was made for. Or, for Irish music, Irish players usually ignore most of the keys, and especially the Eb key. The bottom tone holes could be enlarged so that the low E and F# are in tune. The result would be a sweet and soft Irish flute— not for sessions, but for playing by oneself. The flute would sound somewhat louder if the embouchure hole was also enlarged by someone knowledgeable about wooden flutes. I cannot predict if this would make the flute session worthy.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/183011634302?s ... 1558.l2649
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