Hi! I'm a student entering high school which means I'm going to have marching band. I currently play on a Yamaha 684H but I really would hate to use it on a football field with all sorts of weather! (I was renting a Yamaha student flute a few years ago but returned it to upgrade to the 684).
I'll also be using it as a backup flute for when my nice flute is in the repair shop; last time I used a loaner flute from school it wasn't pleasant... and the high school I'm going to doesn't check out flutes to people at all.
So what flutes would be of decent quality that isn't horrible like Chinese made models you can find on eBay, but with a reasonable price? The most I could spend is a little over $500. I'm seeing lots of good deals for flutes on eBay, so is it safe to buy from there if you just read every single detail very carefully?
So far I'm thinking the Yamaha 221 would be appropiate. Are Orpheus flutes good too?
Thank you very much, your thoughts are appreciated!!! Sorry for the long post.
Good thinking to not use your current yamaha. Any "band" instruement flute would be fine for marching band such as yamaha, gemeinhardt, emerson, armstrong. It may get rained on, hit, stepped on, etc. so you don't want anything too expensive. A base model is adequate.
Okay, I bought an Orpheo 515E flute to use for marching. I found it for $120 brand new on eBay! (Don't worry, I read everything about it carefully) I think it was a decent choice for marching, what do you guys think?
I just sold one of those Orpeheo models and I think they are descend enough. I think that they have made improvements on them since the last time I tried them. They would have went even lower with the price with the BO option. They don't project well, but like the last poster said, if you play flute, you probably won't be heard much anyway out on the field. I just bought a new Orpheo with the engraved keys for my niece. I worked on it and set it up to the way I like it and I think the body of it is pretty good. The only thing I don't like about them is the headjoint. Yuck!! I ended up buying her a nice used professional headjoint to put on it instead.
I'd love to play the piccolo in marching band! But I'm not 100% sure I'll get the part...you have to audition for it, and usually the band director will pick upperclassmen for the piccolo. But even if I do end up playing the piccolo for marching season, there's not a piccolo for the show every year, so that's when a marching flute would come in handy!
Hhm...the headjoint isn't good? On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, what would you rate the headjoint overall? Maybe I could try putting the headjoint that came with my Yamaha 684 onto the Orpheus body if I ever have to play a solo in marching band/my good flute is in the repairshop? It might not fit though.
I was a little worried at first if the Orpheo would end up dead after a week, but I guess I picked one good enough. Thanks for your help everyone, I really appreciate it!
I would rate it maybe a 3. The two Yamaha heads that I tried on it fit a tad loose, but that could be fixed with some tape. For marching band and for being outside with no acoustics, it is fine. The one thing that I did have to fix on the flute was the key height. They were too high for my liking. I also despise the split E on them, but they don't have any without one.
Hhm... I've never played on a flute with a split E mechanism before, never thought I'd find much use for it. But it was on my school's yamaha wood piccolo and I thought it wasn't that bad.
Lol no acoustics...haha. Would a good repairman be able to adjust key height in case I don't like it?
It might not matter though, because it's for marching.........
Sure, a good repair tech could adjust the key height. I adjusted the height on two of them that I have just fine. One of the main reasons that I have never liked the split E on a flute is because of the extra bar that sticks out. I have small enought hands as it is with out that being in the way. They can be nice to have, but I have played 20 years without one and have had no problems with the E.
I got my Orpheus flute in the mail today. I love it!!!!!
The key height isn't all that bad, and the tension of the mechanism feels quite light and springy. One weird thing is they put these cork pieces under the key bumpers for some reason; I think it was to protect it during shipping. My Yamaha headjoint fits on it perfectly, and the Orpheus headjoint isn't that bad...but the low C# and low C natural could have a better tone color and strength to them. Thanks everyone! =]
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It was really hard to get out the cork protection piece out of the thumb key/G key area though, I had to carefully pry it out. It took 10 minutes for just that one piece. But everything was good after that.
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The keys are a little bit noisy though, but I think if I get some silencers put in it'll be a lot better
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The flute plays pretty sharp comparing to my Yamaha, so I had to pull the headjoint out a bit more then I thought I would have to.
Glad to hear you like it. I did put silencers on the two that I had. It made it a lot better. Maybe you got a better headjoint that I did on the ones I had tried. The flute plays much better with a semi pro headjoint. I bought a De Medici D1 headjoint to put on my nieces flute and I like it a lot. Now it sounds and plays better than the used student Yamaha she was playing on. It is pretty too. The girls were giving her a hard time for not having an open hole flute saying that her flute wasn't as good as theirs. We will show them! If I had the more money to spend, I would buy her something better, but this will do for now. She is only going into 8th grade. It is for her birthday. So shhh...
There's like, 3 other people who want to play the piccolo in marching band. But there can only be one or two people on piccolo.......so the band directors will have us audition and they'll pick who they think sounds best on piccolo. Hopefully I'll get the spot.
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Plus there's a few piccolo solos, so that makes it even more important for the band directors to have auditions.....
searching...
Sorry for the long post.
