Rob gave excellent advice in your other thread. I’d say something similar, namely that it’s easy to get a “pretty good” tone on an Olwell, so a lot of people stop working on their embouchure, and never find the focused and precisely aimed airstream needed to make the flute really sing. It’s just like Rob says, most Olwell’s in the wild have owners who stopped too soon.
That said, I also agree with Steampacket that if you DO keep trying to improve your embouchure, then there is no reason to fear a Pratten. It’s common for people to think that flutes have to be “filled” with air, and therefore that larger diameter flutes take more air. The flute is always full of air. What you are doing by blowing against the blowing edge is getting the air in the flute vibrating. Bigger diameter flutes contain more air, so you need a better focused embouchure/more breath support/more accurate aiming of the airstream/and a shorter airstream to get all the air column molecules vibrating and thus realize the full potential of a Pratten. If you have a good embouchure, a Pratten doesn’t take more air.
As an aside, one thing (among many of course) that I don’t understand is that hole size is often thought to be correlated to responsiveness, or crisper ornaments (smaller is more responsive, and bigger is less). All things being equal, this should be true, and I’ve certainly played flutes that support this generalization. Nevertheless, some large holed flutes are very responsive (eg Olwells), and some aren’t. I think there must be something about the care in finishing the tone holes that matters. In any case, I wouldn’t be afraid of Prattens because they “aren’t responsive”.
In the end, it’s about the sound you want and the time you are willing to put in. If I could do one thing differently than I did in 4.5 years of learning the flute it would be not trying so many flutes. It would have been better to spend a year or two on any decent flute, while I was waiting for a flute from a highly regarded maker, and then spend the rest of my life trying to get really good on that flute. So I think that you are on the right track. Order an Olwell. You can’t go wrong, regardless of the model you get. And if you find the model you order isn’t what you want, Pat will exchange it for a different model, so really, there is no risk.
None of what I said should be taken as an argument against flutes made by others. If you like the sound of the Olwell, go for it. If you find yourself captivated by the sound of some other flute, go for that.
Cheers,
Hugh
