Dixon Polymer vs. Olwell Bamboo

[chas]

A couple of points. As has sort of been pointed out already in the thread, the flute that gets you playing and practicing is the best flute to start on. If all you have is 80 bucks, the Olwell bamboo is a great place to start. If it took a year to save up $200, it's better to start on a Dixon than it is to wait five more years for a $1000 flute.

Second, a lot of high-end flutes are, in fact, NOT easy to play. I began on a Pratten-style flute (not even one of the more difficult-to-play ones) and stopped after a few weeks. I bought a couple of antiques and a fairly inexpensive Rudall-style wooden flute, and more recently a Dixon 3-piece, all of which are easier to play than a lot of high-end Prattens. The Bleazey, especially, is just an easy flute to fill and to get a good tone from, but won't likely be a go-to flute for more than a few more years due to its limitations.

[silverton]

BTW, I hope to save up over the next year to get one of Olwell's bamboos.

[Blackbeer]

Ya know Gordon you said something that realy struck home in your last post. A safer flute. You hit the nail on the head as far as my playing tacktics are concerned. I do have a safe flute that always makes music and forgives a sloppy embouchure, and I do get sloppy sometimes. There are times that I have a hell of a time playing the Dixon and some of those times I just put it away and grab my safe flute. NOT GOOD!
I don`t do that every time, I do work through what ever the problem is and it usualy ends up being a 2 or 3 hour practice session. But I do bail every once in a while. Geez I hate these self analitical medatations. By the way I have injoyed this thread. Learned a lot about myself, or my playing habits. And Eric I guess we just have to let the Dixon cretiques bounce right off. I love my Dixon even when it pisses me off, I love oiling it and rubbing it down and just the feel of the rose wood. I love my bamboo flutes, the smell of them and the timber, and I love my safe flute because it is. I guess I just don`t count the money I have spent on all of them. It is gone and forgotten. When my Lehart is ready that cost will also disapear once I have it in my hands. I have already paid for my Olwell bamboo F and have forgotten about it. When it finaly gets here it will seem like a gift. Yes I am a hopeless case. Take care all

Tom

By the way my safe flute is one of Alans and it makes great music

[Gordon]

A couple of points. As has sort of been pointed out already in the thread, the flute that gets you playing and practicing is the best flute to start on. If all you have is 80 bucks, the Olwell bamboo is a great place to start. If it took a year to save up $200, it's better to start on a Dixon than it is to wait five more years for a $1000 flute.

Second, a lot of high-end flutes are, in fact, NOT easy to play. I began on a Pratten-style flute (not even one of the more difficult-to-play ones) and stopped after a few weeks. I bought a couple of antiques and a fairly inexpensive Rudall-style wooden flute, and more recently a Dixon 3-piece, all of which are easier to play than a lot of high-end Prattens. The Bleazey, especially, is just an easy flute to fill and to get a good tone from, but won't likely be a go-to flute for more than a few more years due to its limitations.

Charlie, your first point is certainly well-taken, and I'd have to agree, even though I'd know, doing just that myself, that I was short-changing myself. But I don't have a lot of money, either, and I've done just that, in a pinch.

Your second is the one that concerns me, since a good deal of advice given on these forums are from one beginner to another, which is nice, but often myths and early impressions are passed as gospel, and then become established ideas. SO, I will say this, with the possible exception of some antiques, and some early works of the more modern makers: no well-made flute is hard to play! One may be better or less suited to your style, but hard to play -- no.
This issue is the crux of everything I've said so far, so let me make this point clear -- they are never hard to play if you are truly able to play, and in order to be able to really play, you must learn to play a good flute. Your argument is that, because as a beginner, such-and-such expensive flute(s) was hard to play when you (plural you) tried, therefore an easy-blower that takes less air and can give you a bit of a melody is the more suitable instrument to learn on. By that logic, a horse-back rider should learn on a Shetland pony, a marathon bike racer on a powered moped.
In order to gain real embouchure control, you need to work at it, like anything else. Irish embouchures, in particular, favor a sound and approach not meant for the lazy, but truly, all tone is produced by a refined embouchure of one sort or another, and this takes work. If it's merely fingerings you're after, there's always the whistle, which takes no embouchure at all.
We had a thread on this topic a while back, somewhere in the archives. If you learn to play on a flute that's too easy, you will also sacrifice tone and volume. If you, as a player, want to stay there, great; we have no disagreement, really; enjoy your music at your own level.
But if, at some point in time, you want to move to a better instrument, you will -- after possibly years with said easy-blower -- still find the quality flutes are hard to play. Why is this? Simply because you never learned to control a good embouchure. And, in spite of the years already invested, you will have to get yourself up to the task, a step back, rather than forward.
I have my own personal maker-preferences, for tonal reasons, and hand comfort, etc., or that hard-to-define whatever. But I've never played a flute by good maker that was hard to play (although it often takes a few minutes alone with a strange flute to find it's individual "sweet" spot -- this is simply because its an unfamiliar flute, not because it's any harder or easier to play. Those that don't take a few minutes are probably more similar to what you've been playing.)
I keep popping back on this thread because I can't help thinking how I felt as a beginner, ready to absorb any advice as the truth. Fortunately, I didn't know any of these forums at the time, had a good man to learn the tunes from, and I learned it all on an old German antique, which is a difficult instrument in anyone's hands. Learning on that thing, boy, the Hamilton seemed an easy blower when I finally got around to affording one! (as did all other quality flutes I tried at that point from Olwells to Murrays, to most any).
Anyway, I think I've driven my point well into the ground at this stage...
Gordon

[Pat Cannady]

Most cheap flutes are heartbreakers at worst and a chronic disappointment at best. Save your money and get something better. If you want to sell it later you can and get your money back.

[Jayhawk]

Gordon,

what I need help with is dealing with how playing so much Irish music is destroying my reading skills...when you said "real embouchure control" my mind translated this to "reel embouchure control" - it took 3 read throughs to truly understand your sentence.

Seriously though, I agree with you that no flute should be hard to play once you've developed a decent embouchure. Now get ready, because we're u-turning back to the Dixon v. Olwell court case here, since I've developed my embouchure on my Dixon, I've not found any flute hard to play unless it was just a terrible flute (my big ole' Pakistani mistake for example). Like you, I've had to toot around for a few minutes to find the flute's sweet spot, but after that it's not that much difference (except for wind requirements, finger stretch, hole size, etc...). Granted, I've not played too many other flutes, and actually tried more new fifes in the meanwhile, but even my poorly made home made flutes play better and easier now that I have what I consider to be a half way decent embouchure. The Olwell bamboo may do the same, I've not played one, but the Dixon has IMHO been good for my embouchure development (I assume it's embouchure development that's making everything easier to play - I'm not sure what else would do that - I've been playing whistle for years so the fingering issues are not there for me).

One thing I'm still not clear on, and I did read that earlier thread on easy vs. hard blowers when it was active, is what should be considered an easy blowing flute. If you've yet to develop a good, working embouchure, all flutes are hard blowers! Once you have a good embouchure, some flutes require a firm/focused embouchure while others seem to favor a more relaxed embouchure, but what makes it an easy vs. a hard blower? Often, changing embouchure on the same flute just changes the tone you're producing (from sweet and mellow to, say, reedy). I know on my Dixon I need a focused embouchure, but when I get tired (which happens sooner than I'd like) my tone suffers. Does that make it an easy blower or a hard blower? I'm really not trying to be difficult on this one, but I just don't grasp the difference.

To me, playing flute once you have the basic skills isn't hard, but playing well is a lifetime's adventure!

Eric

[BMFW]

I worry a wee bit when I read people saying that the Dixon requires a really focussed embouchure - if you think that's focussed, try a Wilkes!

I would agree with Gordon that the Dixon finds favour with beginers but not among the more experienced. I got a Dixon when I was between flutes and coming out of a bit of a lay-off. So it flattered my playing since it didn't require too much work to get a tone going. It did not, however, train the strong embouchure now required from my Prowse. Having said that, the Prowse requires more work than the Hamiltons that I have tried or, indeed the Wilkes I tried, but they all require significantly more work than the Dixon.

So, I would recommend a Dixon to a beginner in order to get a feel for the flute and to avoid becoming disheartened whilst struggling for tone, but the top makers raise the bar in terms of the tone available from their flutes and this requires the player to raise their standard accordingly. I don't believe that a Dixon will equip you with the embouchure needed to make the most out of a high end flute, but it is a worthy starting point.

Cheers

Graham