Hey folks,

I am interested in picking up flute. I am going to save up money for purchasing an instrument and I already have signed up for lessons commencing at September.

today i went to a musical store to ask about a flute i saw in there. I was told the label was Amati. Is it any good? Or should i strictly stick to Yamaha, Pearl or Jupiter (the most popular brand names everyone tends to suggest)?

http://store.musicbasics.com/f-400.html

If a brand is not well known, it is for a reason, I would stick with the other brands you listed, especially if you are prepared to spend $500

They didn't have Yamaha. I asked the clerk about it, i told him that it was yamaha that most people tend to recommend and he didn't understand why this brand is better.

try a Jupiter 511 or 611 which has a silver head, be wary of any store that tries to sell you what they have. You can always go online to several sources, try www.langemusic.com and email or call and talk to Joe

How about this one:

http://www.pillipood.ee/index.php?lang=est&pid=23&sid=Pearl&id=1301473

This is a Pearl flute. and the price for it is, when converted to USD, approx. 582.

Are you looking for a new flute or a nice used one? I sell used flutes if interested. Drop me a line and I can help.

Amati's History:
http://www.grahams-music.com/our%20instruments/czech.htm

Amati is the manufacturer of the Forte Clarinet ( http://www.doctorsprod.com ) and all sorts of clarinet variations. The Allora sax lines at wwandbw is supposedly Amati.

I would wait till you have your lesson teacher available to go shopping with you.

i guess you guys are right.

i think it might be best to settle for some tried and true used student flute for starters, like gemeinhardt.

Stereom, if you plan to buy an used student Gemeinhardt, beware!.

Have it thoroughly tested by someone who can really assess its playability by a beginner (your teacher should be able to do it). Just being an experienced player could not be enough, as he/she play a flute with problems, but maybe not a beginner.

I own a Gemeinhardt M2 (quite old, true) and I think it's beyond reasonable repair. It is not a bad instrument; I have used it for 3 years, when both the instrument and myself were starting from zero.

And it has been a good companion -until it degraded.

But repairs like re-padding could sometimes cost close to the price of a new instrument and other problems, like pivots adjustments, for example, keep showing up until you have them modified by good technicians (or learn to adjust them yourself, something I do not recommend by my own experience).

(No owner edit once again!)

In my last paragraph I meant that if you do not trust the instrument, you cannot know if it's you or it, the culprit of problems while playing. Very misleading and frustrating, definitively something to avoid, particularly when your are starting this sort of relationship and "do not yet know each other"

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Fine, now I have the "owner edit" button. Some sort of cat and mouse play?

of course i am not in a hurry of getting an instrument yet. i still have money to save up. so for the next a couple of months or so i am open to practically any sort of suggestions. I do sincerely hope i can keep my eventual purchasing in the confines of 500 dollars.

I can definitely get you one for under $300, so do make sure to drop me a line when you are ready to purchase a good quality flute. The flutes that I sell are reconditioned to be like new.

Today I dropped by from the music school. I went to a flute teacher. I told her that a music store sold Amati and she didn't have complaints about it. I am from Estonia, so for me, Amati is definitely more known. Maybe europeans have a different approach to flute playing or something that they think they can settle for stuff like Amati, who knows. She gave me a number of some dude who sells used woodwinds. I phoned him and he told me that one of the flutes he has is a fairly cheap Yamaha copy. I do tend to think that perhaps copies of Yamaha or Pearl don't count and maybe i should stick with the real thing. Right?

I understand how important in this field it is to maintain critical approach to examining the facts and rationally discern between what fits and what doesn't.

I'd like to know,

why does brand matter so damn much?

like, just because there are more people playing with, umm, say JUPITER as opposed to BUFFET; does that really make JUPITER superior to BUFFET? Why would the famous brand matter, when the question about mastering the essentials, the very fundamentals of flute playing should go beyond the brand? Should I not save thinking like that only for the time when I have become advanced enough and reached the threshold from which i can move on into something that fits me as a player?

I am sorry if i sounded a little confrontational, but i just keep getting all of those conflicting opinions about what is good and what is not good? It's like that all the flute players in the world have not reached any consensus at all. maybe everything boils down to the player, rather than to what is played? And what if one players' junk is another man's instrument with a duration up to 7 years? You may say that the one that sells the Yamaha copy might end up selling me junk, but i have asked other estonian flute enthusiasts and i've heard no criticism leveled at him thus far. He is in fact very respected as a woodwind seller and repairer. Music schools rely on him in terms of getting instruments at schools.

I hope you can forgive me for I am confused.

Unfortunately, you will never receive a consensus from flutists on the "best" flute. The problem is most of us are hung up on brand names because overall the most popular brand names have a good reputation in the flute world. By this I mean they are known to produce good sound, have nice mechanisms, and are generally sturdy.

However, there are still disagreements as to the best. Some people dislike Pearl flutes, while I tend to like them a lot. I do not like Geimenhardt flutes personally, but it is mostly because they do not feel comfortable to me when I hold them. Yamaha's feel dainty and the keys feel like they are the size of dimes to me. However, lots of other people enjoy them.

The main reason most flutists will not recommend a non-name brand instrument is because a lot of the smaller instrument builders are out to make a lot of money. The flutes are usually inexpensive because they are made cheaply. They come out of adjustment a lot, the metal is soft and easily dented, or the general materials are cheap.

I would recommend buying an inexpensive nickel plated student model from a well recoginized company before I ever bought an off-brand flute from an unknown company. Buying an instrument is not like buying generic food or clothes. You don't expect food or clothing to last 5-10 years, however if you do not upgrade your instrument, and you plan on playing for a long time, making a quality purchase on an instrument is worth your while.

Also, although everyone has good intentions when starting an instrument, sometimes people do not continue to play. It might be better to buy a lesser quailty student model until you are sure playing the flute is something you want to stick with. I would hate to see anyone spend $500 + on an instrument and then have it in a closet a year later.