Is it just me or is this thing ugly as an ugly thing that’s just been made king of the land of ugly things?
£8.5k sterling will get it.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=10183&item=3781823641&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
And why is the footjoint stuffed into the headjoint?
Do you think you will like it more when it is finished ? With all those corners cut off and sanded down it might be worth a couple of hundred.
Well, it’s “currently owned by a professional flautist” so it must be worth every penny.
“The unique square keys and tone holes are designed to enhance the flute’s overall acoustic qualities and immediacy of response whilst maintaining the rich sonority of tone for which Abell’s wooden flutes have long been revered.”
Curses. To think we’ve been fobbed off with un-enhanced and un-responsive round ones all these years!
The Patrick Gallois that he mentions is a big name classical flutist, and Lopatin is a fairly well known boehm system flute maker who specializes in square keys, so I believe anyway "cos I’ve heard of him before this. But man is it ugly. Looks like something Adolf Hitler would have treasured for playing Wagner.
Note the cutaway embouchure seems to be quite popular in wood flutes nowadays, presumably helps.
Abell headjoints are incredible. That mechanism however, while it may sound great sure is ugly! I’ve never played one. http://www.lopatinflutes.com/square.html
Dana
I’ve played an Abell (with round toneholes and regular keys) for 3 years now. The 2 year wait almost killed me, but it is the best flute I’ve ever played. I was at Chris’ shop one day when he was working the round holes into square ones on one of the 2 square holed flutes with a file. It looked like it was going to take a long, long time. Blackwood seems to be really hard stuff. There was no keywork on it at the time. The square keys don’t do a lot for the looks, do they?
Chris Roberts
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Jim Schmidt does make some mean pads, though.
Vewwy sexy!
Actually the Frankenstein monster of flutes.
But if it does what he says, he’s
a genius!
Really interesting that people keep rethinking
these instruments, flute, sax, whatever.
I haven’t quite worked this out, but it seems to have a percussion accompaniment like the better Victorian musical boxes.