Belated Flute

I'd been waiting for this flute to arrive for several days, and finally I saw the tracking information on Tuesday placed the flute in Savannah. I was gone for the day, but I told Michael, 'the flute should be here today!' As we drove home that evening, Michael paused behind the FedEx truck, stopped at an address very similar to our own (Way instead of Court), and said, "I wonder if that's your flute?" Sure enough, the FedEx worker was carrying a flute-shaped package to the porch. I dashed out of the van and rescued my flute, which the worker relinquished with a sheepish look of dismay.
Who in the world had the bright idea to make a 'Court' extend off of a 'Way' and repeat the numbers? This same thing happened when I ordered Alex's first violin. I tracked the package, and on the evening when I saw it had been delivered, I decided to take a stroll up to the 'Way' address, and, behold, there lay a violin-sized package on the porch. I felt like a thief as I approached the porch, verified our name on the package, and sauntered away with it, trying to seem nonchalant as I said, "hello!" to curious-looking neighbors.

Back to my flute... Isn't it pretty? Well, I suppose it just looks like a flute in the pictures, but this is a silver-plated, open-holed French flute with a B foot. It's hard to believe I actually have one! I played flute from 6th thru 10th grades (there was no band in my 11th grade school and at my 12th grade school I did join a flute choir for a bit, though I opted not to enter band at that point...) and was quite the competitor, always aiming for first chair and receiving the solos and such! I played piccolo, even, some of the time, which is a full octave higher than the flute and gave me awful headaches with the ear-piercing shrieks it made! Horrible! It stole the flute's show, though, so of course I wanted to be the one to play it, if it were to be played.

I also played flute through my undergrad years about once monthly with my mother at her church, but I dropped it after moving away to grad school, for the most part. I play perhaps three times annually for my mother's church now, and otherwise I rarely pick it up.

Given the rarity of playing, I haven't felt justified in making the expensive purchase of a nice flute. However, I have increasingly begrudged the fact that I was playing a basic student model flute, whose tin-alloy finish was worn away in many areas due to such heavy use. I never liked the flute, but I was simply glad to have one at all.

This past school year, I have re-entered the world of daily flute-like practicing with Fiona. We have been practicing the recorder together, and she is quite the musical gal. I find music with duets, and we harmonize and sound absolutely lovely (to my ears, at least!). I can understand why my mother always claimed that she liked to play with her daughter, as perhaps I'm experiencing that as well. Fiona can really hold her own! Her music/recorder teacher has already pegged her as a future flute player, and Fiona has asked to start learning flute.

Of course, this is the opportunity and excuse I needed! Finally! I can't teach her and we can't play together if I don't actually have two flutes. We figure my basic student flute will be a perfectly fine beginner flute for her, and we can upgrade later. Besides, I would be reluctant for her to carry around an expensive flute to leave lying around at school. My old one will be fine for daily school practice.

Michael took me to the music store, where I actually was allowed to try out the display models. I did opt for the expensive, solid silver Gemeinhardt French flute with a golden mouthpiece. Silver flutes have better tone quality than the tin-alloy flutes, and the gold actually does warm and enrich the tone quality, even if it does sound frivolous!

The salesman struck $600 or so from the price and quoted me $1900, plus a $108 annual maintenance fee. Hmm...I'd have to think about that.

We then visited other music stores, and we looked at inexpensive student models for around the $200 level. We visited the pawn shop, where they tried to sell me a dented and tarnished French flute that I swear smelled of smoke for the lovely price of $399. No thanks.

Back to e-bay, where I discovered again a smorgasbord of instruments. I was highly, highly tempted by the same model of Gemeinhardt for a mere $850. Nice! However, while I weighed the incredibly inexpensive basic student flutes for just over $100, I spotted a new Venus silver-plated French flute for $240. No, not solid silver, nor the gold mouthpiece. But the price was nice! It was tempting, and they had a 'make an offer' feature, which I'd never used before. I impulsively threw out an offer of $190, and it was accepted by the next morning!

Wow! I couldn't believe I'd done it! After actually making the bid, I'd gone on to actually research a little about this brand, and I did squirm upon seeing it bashed by serious flautists. One disparager said, "If you're not playing anything too technical, and you just want to look pretty, the Venus flute might be fine for you..." I lit up...okay! That sounds about right! Though she went on to advise the budget-bound girl considering the Venus French flute to spend her dollars getting her student model flute tweaked and livened up with an ornamental cap, I still couldn't help but think, "well, I never play anything too technical these days, and I DO so want a pretty flute--this might be just the thing." I am as smug as anything now that I have compared the flutes. My pretty Venus flute blows away the old student model for tone quality, and the B foot allows it to play another note below C, which solo flute music often includes (as any flautist worthy of the name should have advanced to a B foot). The tone is gorgeous and full, warm and rich! The open holes have removable caps in them, and I know from experience that it will take some work for me to graduate to the open holes, but they should improve sound quality even more if and when I do.

Of course, if I were a professional flautist with a symphony, it might be wise to heed the advice to invest in a top-quality instrument, but seriously, this does seem just the thing for me, and I just pray the flute maintains its integrity. If it does, I'm a happy flautist! Really, two years of payments on the maintenance plan of the Gemeinhardt cover the cost of my new flute, so I haven't lost too much with this 'risky' investment. Besides, the Gemeinhardt was only the best that the store offered, and is still only an intermediate level flute. Advanced flutes run over $5000!