I understand hand made products are going to be more expensive by their nature, but doesn’t anyone make these sort of flutes with machines to reduce cost? I haven’t seen a keyed flute that costs less than a couple thousand. 8 key flutes are more than $5k. My Bach Stradivarius doesn’t even come close to that, and it’s made of silver! It seems like if mass produced, they should not be very expensive at all. Is it just that no one does that anymore?
To that end, though, I’ve looked around and found Doug Tipple’s flutes. They look nice, but I’d like something with at least a few keys to expand my range. I’ve found this flute on Ebay, and because of the price, I gotta ask: what’s wrong with it? The same with this one.
This Irish flute is a simple six hole flute tuned so as the lowest playable pitch (all holes closed) is D
… yet the images show an instrument with two keys on the foot, making the “lowest playable pitch” presumably a C . If a seller can get their basic description of the flute so dramatically wrong, one wonders about the rest of the detail and any after-sales support that might be needed
Yeah, it’s just a tube with a bunch of holes, innit?
You might want to spend some time reading through websites on these flutes we play and about how they are made and who makes them. Really, do some reading. Start with Terry McGee’s fine site and go from there. It is a specialized product requiring specialized skill, expensive tools and machines as well as exotic materials to make them.
Mass produced? That would first assume that there is a significant mass for which to produce the product. This is a niche market and not a big niche market. Remember that the Boehm flute replaced our beloved wooden concert flutes in art music 150 years ago. That is the flute for the masses these days. You can find a Chinese produced Boehm style flute for not much. They also make plastic flutes if you want one of those.
But if you want a proper wooden flute with hand made keys you might want to alter your price expectations a tad. No one is getting rich making and selling these flutes. It is a labor of love - love of the music and the now somewhat archaic instrument.
Oh, and you really don’t need the keys to play most of the music played in the Irish repertoire. I have a keyed flute and I only use it during the Holiday Season to play tunes with the odd notes outside of the usual modes. The rest of the time I get along fine without the keys and have for many, many years. You can go far without the keys. But of course that depends on what you play and who you are playing with.
Those India made ebonite flutes have been discussed here a lot. You can do a search of the past posts to read what folks think about them. Some think they are worth the cost, you know, you get what you pay for. And that’s not much.
Well, with ebay there is never going to be any after sales support. Possibly the person selling it doesn’t know much about it, and was just told it’s a “D Flute” so that’s what they used.
You’ll do nothing but throw away your money on a FLO. A “Flute Like Object”. Looks like a flute but won’t play in tune or perhaps even at all.
Doug is a good start at a entry flute but you’ll be ahead of the game if you get yourself a proper conical timber flute from a modern maker.
You won’t really be missing the keys for a good long while if at all. Keys are overrated anyway and they take a bit of maintenance and can be fickle depending on the weather.
Full disclosure, I do play a keyed vintage concert flute but I also like pulling the wings off of flies so your mileage may vary.
Keep an eye out for a used Martin Doyle keyless. All the flute you will ever need for quite some time.
The cheap eBay flutes are very valuable from an educational standpoint. Buy one and you’ll REALLY understand how important it is to seek out a competent maker.
I started with a Tipple, as did many here. They’re real flutes, at a great value. The Casey Burns Folk Flute is also great, as are the Delrin flutes from makers such as Forbes, Copley and Somers. Do yourself a favor, and don’t buy useless junk!
Feadoggie: I’ve read through McGee’s site. He really does lay it all out. I think what you said about this being a niche market is what really matters here. If no one is making these flutes in mass, the price is going to be very high. I’ve been considering a Boehm style, but I’m worried I can’t do the bends and rolls and those sort of sounds that I’m so fond of using on whistles.
Any yea, the keys aren’t that important, I suppose. I’d personally just like to have the C below the low D, and then when the combination of half-holing and cross fingerings, I’d be covered in the keys for the styles of music I like to play. I asked Doug if he could add a hole for that, but it’s a no go. =(
Perhaps I’ll just stick with whistles. I’ve heard very good things about the one from Sweetheart Flute Co…
It’s not as much a matter of mass as it is that what you see is pretty much what it costs. If you actually had a maker charge for his time, his experience, his machinery, his shop, his insurance (etc., etc., etc.) you would have an even higher price I think. There’s no corporation behind the craftsman maker. He’s (she’s) hanging out there on their own covering every cost you can imagine and selling their wares for what they can get - no more.
Actually he does do that or he did. It’s an eight hole flute. You just need to have someone else travel with you to cover the lower holes when you need them… …which is not very often.
The Tipple (with lip plate and wedge) is a very decent place to get started. I’ve had two of his flutes and the more recent one is a very playable and nice sounding instrument.
Har, har, har… I was thinking kinda like Colin Goldie does with a high D. I guess that’s pretty much imitating a recorder at that point, though. If he could do that in a low with a tapered bore… I’ll just keep dreaming.
OK, a thousand dollars plus is objectively quite a bit of money for non-essentials. But for a hand-made instrument, it’s really not that much. We’ve been through the whole price of violin bows, guitars, etc. vs. flutes, but to keep the comparison a little more apples to apples, consider that a professional grade (keyed) Irish flute runs $3-$4K, while pro-grade Boehm flutes are barely starting at that price (and easily cost double or triple). In fact, you can find just headjoints that cost between $1000 and $3000!
To echo a point already made, keys are far from essential (see also whistles). (Breathnach even wrote that he preferred the sound of a half-holed F natural over the keyed note.) So without keys, you can get a top-of-the-line instrument for about $1000-$1700; you can get a good flute for well under that: the Burns Folk Flute, Forbes Delrin, or Copley Delrin (or all-wood) cost around $400, give or take, and will provide years (read, decades) of satisfaction.
And finally, if you get a good flute from the get-go, it’s cheaper than getting a FLO and then buying real flute. Plus, you really only need one–that’s all you can play at one time anyway–so you’re plunking out $400-$1000 once, and you’re set for years and years.
I have a pretty efficient shop for a solo maker and I take advantage of technology to make things even more streamlined. I have a very nice drilling machine for cutting bores very quickly and I have a CNC mill to act as a robot apprentice. This type of thing will help speed up some of the “grunt” work of flute making, but not by a ton. It’s primary function is to spare the flute makers body
Even with some high-tech gadgetry, there are aspects of making these flutes that you simply can’t do quickly or in a “mass” approach. Cutting tenons and sockets to the right size and threading or corking them is a delicate business and is only going to go so quickly, even if the flutes are rolling down an assembly line.
Cutting the embouchure hole, tweaking it, and then drilling finger holes and tuning the flute is a very time consuming operation. It is done by hand (and these days I need a bright light and some magnification to see ) and there is no amount of technology or a human workforce that is going to speed it up.
I’ve seen those ebay flutes as well, looking just like a far more expensive flute but only costing a couple of hundred dollars. The only way for that to be profitable to anyone is by either cutting corners or by using slave labor (and unusually skilled slave labor at that).
An M&E (as can be found on Patrick’s flute store which Jim posted above or directly from Michael Cronnolly himself) will only set you back $700-800. Good flute, keys work and are ergonomically placed - simply hard to go wrong with one if you don’t want or can’t spend the money for a more expensive flute. Yes, it’s not the prettiest flute, and yes they’re heavy…but they play well and are a cheap way into the keyed flute world.
Another option is keep your eyes open for keyed flutes being offered on the Used section of this forum. I bought a great keyed antique American flute (by E. Baack) from Jon Cornia for a great price, and I know he periodically offers very good keyed flutes for less than 1 grand.
Well, in relative terms someone IS making these flutes en masse. They may be attractively cheap, but cheap is the word; they’re simply unworthy products, and that is a direct consequence of mass production, and there’s no getting around it. I know they’re bad from hard experience, and I don’t mind saying so. In this case you ARE just getting “a tube with holes”, and indeed that would seem to be the apparent philosophy that makes them. Mass production with an eye to low price must by definition abandon informed painstaking craftsmanship, and with no craftsmanship, it means you don’t get flutes, but flute approximations. They make sound, but they don’t play well, or in tune, and they are shabby. Do yourself a favor and save up your money for better.
Really, all things considered the prices for good, well-crafted trad flutes are on average very reasonable. For some perspective, check out the new professional-grade wooden Boehm flutes out there. They run from an average of at least $12,000, and I recall one for $14,000. Good keyed trad flutes cost roughly a third of that overall, and keyless ones even less yet by half or more. It may even be that it is precisely the very niche market itself that keeps trad flute prices from being higher than they could be, but of course this is just a passing thought, and debatable.
