Of the second one, it's really hard to tell. The model is no longer in the online catalog of The Music Room. It doesn't look bad. But when making flutes by hand, the cost of sterling rings is much less significant than the effort that goes into the flute (and often the rings themselves). The finished flute gains at least as much value as the cost of the sterling. There's no particular point to using second-class materials.
This flute has nickel rings. If you have a factory you can arrange with a supplier to produce large numbers of identical rings and nickel makes sense. It's not absolute, but it suggests a scale of production that precludes hand tuning and voicing.
At the extreme, one of my students gave me a pair of flutes from India; one about fife size, the other a humongous bass flute that is playable only by the most extreme piper's grip. They are of some bamboo-like material and probably not uniform in size but still it wouldn't have taken much to get them approximately in tune. They aren't. The vast majority of people who buy them don't know the difference. The market of people who do know the difference is much too small to make a profit on cheap instruments.
While expensive instruments aren't guaranteed to be wonderful, cheap ones are pretty much guaranteed to be awful.
Tell us something.: I enjoy playing flutes & whistles. C&F is a great place to learn more about both. It is interesting to find out more about makers, history, techniques and making music with these instruments.
I have the first flute you asked about as well as a Dixon 3 piece, non-tunable. The Dixon plays better and 'easier'. The woodon one came with no markings to confirm 'Pakistan' or not. It is in tune and it does play well enough. I have needed to use the tuning slide to play with other instruments and that has worked. It is quieter than the Dixon and not as 'nimble' for lack of a better word. I am an amatuer so what is my issue and what is the flute's remains open. It is nice to look at ...
Tell us something.: To paraphrase Mark Twain, a gentleman is someone who knows how to play the spoons and doesn't. I'm doing my best to be a gentleman.
How about a "sticky" at the top of this forum warning people away from Pakistani ebay flutes? The question seems to come up fairly regularly, and there's only one answer!
fyffer wrote:A [slightly edited] quote from the second entry above should tell you what you need to know:
"..., but has ... hardly any use ..."
As a general rule: If you find the word "Pakistan" on a flute-selling page, close the window and keep searching.
Many on this forum call those items "flute-like objects".
-Chris
That's funny...I tend to call Pakistani junk "flute-shaped firewood." Bought one figuring "Oh, it can't be all THAT bad, it should be at least SLIGHTLY playable..." I never got a note out of it... so I sent it back.. Now I'm looking at a Sweetheart maple or cherry..
The original owner of my border pipes made good use of a set of Pakistani parlour pipes. He already had a set of drones by Heriot & Alan and a Garvie chanter so he whittled down the Pakistani blowpipe to connect to the bellows. It works well but it just looks a little mismatched. C&F's own Jim the bellows maker is sorting me out.
Unfortunately these instruments aren't good for much unless you're a master craftsman (à la Rod Cameron or Tim Britton) or use them for other than what they were intended (flute lamp anybody?).
Rings and a tuning slide do not mean a flute is a good player!
Hey, that link is to my new flute!! I got a Sweetheart for under $170.... I can't complain.. Now I just have to suffer while I wait for it to arrive...
Regarding parlor pipes: Just go ahead and purchase a set of shuttle pipes from John Walsh... bulletproof construction, good tonation and easy to play. I have a set from him that he kindly agreed to make from a piece of black walnut I'd acquired. I have yet to run across a Pakistani instrument that was desirable for anything other than kindling.
Doc's Book
