Does an easy-to-play flute lead to a lazy or poorly developed embouchure?

[david_h]

I followed the advice from here to start on a not-too-challenging flute. It served me well. After a while I followed the advice to also get a G flute (a low-cost Tipple) for a beneficial embouchure challenge.

[pancelticpiper]

I think most professional musicians (I'm thinking flute, clarinet, sax players mostly) play instruments that are efficient, that is, giving you more with you putting in less.

Their instruments are tools for doing their job, and saddling themselves with a "stuffy horn" that you have to force the sound out of would be as silly as a carpenter or any other worker using tools that make their job harder to do.

A pro sax guy let me play his high-end silver flute (a Powell or Haynes or something) and I was amazed. It was easy to "fill" and easier to get powerful low notes and sweet high notes than any flute Boehm or trad I'd ever played. It was pure delight to play.

On the other side of the coin, Matt Molloy said in some interview (perhaps one of you will know where to find it) that he had an Olwell which was easier to "fill" than his go-to vintage flute. He said something to the effect that he would set aside the Olwell until he got to the age where he could no longer get the most out of his regular flute.

I knew an Irish fluter years ago (he's passed) who had two flutes, both original 19th century Prattens. His "first flute" was the one he always played, and at one point he loaned me his "second flute" for a week. I was blown away, it was clearly the best "Irish flute" I've ever played. It was super easy to play, putting out a massive tone with ordinary effort. Every note up and down the scale was pure and clear and perfectly in tune. I thought "Oh my gosh if this is his SECOND flute what on earth can his first flute be like?"

Well I got to try it and it was a beast to play. You really had to work, really had to blow, to get much out of it. And it was massive and heavy, covered with fat silver mounts, so it was tiring to hold as well. I asked him why do you play that beast instead of the other flute? And he said the ornate heavy stuffy flute had a magic to its tone that no other flute he'd ever played had. It was true, when he played it.

He had a very focused and powerful embouchure and he was able to get the full potential out of that thing. I didn't have the embouchure to do it justice, and I have zero interest in acquiring such a flute.