daiv wrote:
i also recommend a pratten. rudall style flutes are great, but the small holed olwell is not a rudall style flute, as far as i understand, it plays more like an olwell (which is a good thing) than anything. so, have fun with it, get a keyless pratten style olwell, and a keyed pratten style olwell, if you want a keyed flute.
The Pratten
Olwell also plays more like an
Olwell.
I have played my
Olwell Rudall side-by-side with Patrick's (virtually) exact copy of the original, and they're really similar outside of the tuning. Chris Norman has played mine side-by-side with his Rudall, which is the original, and has said the same thing.
Olwell has put his own stamp on all the designs, which is why he prefers calling them large- medium- and small-holed flutes rather than Prattens, Nicholsons, and Rudalls. But when I asked for a copy of the Rudall rather than his small-holed flute, he said I really didn't want the copy, that all he'd done was change the scale. Of course, embouchure cuts are very individual, and he does his own. But the guts of the flute are as close as you're likely to find in a flute with modern tuning.
- long wait. But I know that it will be worth it. It seems that an Olwell has every characteristic I look for in a flute: responsiveness, power, and "easy to fill."
)
), I'd say that an Olwell is a very safe investment (if anyone thinks otherwise, let me know). On a more important note, I know it will be a lot of fun.
