ive recently had a notion to sell my flute (muramatsu) and buying myself another flute in its place (miyazawa). im unsure of this because school starts soon and im scared that im going to buy a flop. i am aware of how the miyazawa plays because i had almost bought one when picking out flutes. i ended up not buying it courtesy of my flute teacher at the time. im also scared because i really like my flute. nothing has really gone wrong with it except normal wear and tear (a felt wearing down, etc). another thing that worrys me is that what i could buy for the money i would make on my flute now would only get me a 402 model and i have solid silver keys now. i know it wont make a difference with the sound, but if im upgrading then wouldnt i want to "upgrade" and get something nicer? i have my doubts but i really do like the miyazawa. i mean, i really do like it! if you were in my situation, what would you do?

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also, another reason im considering this is because i have an inline g. i have extremely long fingers and an extremely short pinky so sometimes its uncomfortable to do fast passages. in short, i want the offset.

ok, go on. put in your 2 cents.

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or maybe my pinky is really long... hm. i dont know. i just know i have long fingers and the inline g sucks for me.

ok, keep going. back to the advice

If you like the feel, sound and playability better on the Miyazawa then I say go for it! I sold my DS because I was not comfortable with it and liked the Powell much better and I have never been happier. I wouldn't worry about the keys being solid silver, later on you could always upgrade to another Miyazawa if you really wanted those solid silver keys. I do know that in the past Miyazawa did have trouble with their plating, it was very thin and did not last, lets hope they are better now. Mechanically, it is my personal opinion that even though I feel more comfortable on the Miya, the Muramatsu is built better. I have heard people having a lot of problems with straubinger pads and such on the Miyazawas. I don't like the grommets that Miya uses on their keys. Key extensions are pretty easy to make also, so if you do end up wanting to keep your Muramatsu then you could also go the route.

be careful about giving up a flute you like, you may live to regret it..I have seen this..micron is right, one can plug the g key, it wont affect the sound..for the record, I like my inline g, i also like an offset g

i have plugged the g key but the problem is with the g# key. on other offset g flutes i have played, the g# key seemed to be farther away from the actual body. with the inline i am playing halfway up the key. i have heard about the plating problems which made me also think. and ive heard of the key extension, but ive only seen them on brannen flutes. and its not that i want a new flute because my muramatsu is a fairly new instrument. im just torn right now with what i should do.

Just make the extensions yourself. I have done this before for customers, it is pretty easy. The Brannen extensions cost an arm and a leg anyway.

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You know.. I think that I may still have the G extention still that I made for when I used to have my DS. That one was an in line G. I don't have the G# extension anymore though. I will have to go see if I can find it. You would be welcome to try it out.

I'd join Kara's and Patrick's choir. Don't just sell this flute with the illusion that just because other brand promises better ergnomics it will sing better.
I'd try Kara's extension before deciding something so dramatic. Plugging is also acceptable.
Plus, besides there is no perceivable change in sound because of plated keys, the problem here is durability. Solid silver keys last much more.
Add to this that you might be in the need of taking your flute to a good technician to an overall check, you may get your already good flute even better.

cheers,
Zevang

yes, thank you very much. the comments here gave me other options i could possibly look into doing (the key extension). i really do like my flute and it would be a shame to give it up.

thank you!

p.s. kara, i would be interested in contacting you further about the key extensions... i have some questions that maybe you could answer.