Anyone know how I could go about contacting the Yamaha corporation about a possible instrument development?

Try this...

Yamaha Corporation of America
6600 Orangethorpe Ave.
Buena Park, CA 90620
(714) 522-9011

Email: infostation@yamaha.com

you could also approach them at a trade show, more personal that way

I once approached Yamaha (in Japan) with some design improvements, but they were almost angry in not wanting to know, because if they accepted my suggestions, and carried them out, they thought I may claim royalties (not that I would!). They wanted all improvements to be initiated by their own development staff.

Go to http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/winds/index.htm
Click on "Yamaha Worldwide Directory"
Scroll down to the coloured world map. Click on Japan, and you find

Yamaha Corporation
10-1 Nakazawa-cho Hamamatsu
P.O. Box 1
Shizuoka, Japan
Tel: (81) 53-460-1111
Internet: www.yamaha.co.jp/english/

Or, go to http://www.global.yamaha.com/index.html

Click on the appropriate country, say Japan, in the drop-down box, and hit `Go`, for a whole heap of addresses.

depends on the company, some are more open, I am an artist/clinician for an Asian flute co. and they have used several of my suggestions.

I thought that you only played on a Haynes oldy flute?

Lena, a more proper word would be vintage.

For me, the word "vintage" belongs to cars, and brings up images of beautiful restoration, but poor and unreliable performance by mosdern standards.

"Oldy" seems more affectionate and accommodating.

I do play on a vintage flute, but also do artist/clinician work for a manufacturer, lots of flute players do

I think oldy sounds trashy.

That too. :-)

kljh

There are vintage wines.

And I suppose if you grade flute quality on the years they were produced... wouldn`t vintage then apply.

Maybe the 60`s were especially good for Haynes. Such a good flute could be a 1960 vintage Haynes, so to speak.

I`m curious though as to when popularity for the underwear brand built up and the lack of popularity for the flute brand came around. I can`t think of why the Haynes brand fell out of favor... certainly the old flutes are of a different scale, but so are old flutes of other brands. Their new flutes are of modern scale.

I`ve always thought underwear is doing them in...

"I can`t think of why the Haynes brand fell out of favor... certainly the old flutes are of a different scale, but so are old flutes of other brands. Their new flutes are of modern scale."

Possibly because they were obstinately one of the last to improve their scale.