Tag: 14k gold

I find myself in the market for a new flute. I’m not in a hurry to purchase, and I plan to try out many different instruments before deciding what I want to go with. This week, I’ve been playing a wooden (grenadilla) flute made by Powell. The mechanism is sterling silver and it has a B foot joint, French cups, and offset G. It’s pitched at A=442. I’ve tried two different headjoints with it this week. My own personal grenadilla headjoint has a sterling silver tenon; I also tried a grenadilla headjoint with a 14k gold tenon. The instrument has a beautiful, warm sound. I did notice a difference in the sound between the two headjoints. However, they seem to be cut slightly differently, so the differences can’t be attributed to material (silver versus 14k gold) alone. It’s a comfortable instrument to play. It does take slightly longer to warm up than a metal instrument — and I only played it for short intervals, as it was only finished a couple of weeks ago — but once it’s warm, it has a lovely sound. This flute is definitely on the short list.