My New Flute

At long last I've made a decision and I've bought my new flute! I'm very happy. It's a Guo Grenaditte flute. So why did I decide on this one? Well, my own flute is a beautiful silver Altus which has served me exceedingly well for many, many years. I bought it before I started Flutewise which is a long time ago. I had huge problems when I first bought it, it has a seamed tube and it was eventually discovered there was a tiny whole in the tube which caused problems. Once it was put right, I decided I would never try another flute again and just get on working with the one I've got. The stress had just been too much.

Many years have now past and all that time I've been happy. I've occasionally considered a new instrument, but nothing has ever appealed. Wooden flutes have often tempted me, but I've never been that tempted. A few months ago I was up at Just Flutes and as I went out the door, I noticed this odd-looking white flute with black keys. Now I really liked the look of it. I had a look at it on their website and it was a Guo New Voice flute. I also read about the Guo Grenaditte flute and that seemed more like my instrument.

I was really grateful to Jonathan Myall and Pasha at Just Flutes for letting me have three of these flutes to try for a couple of weeks. It was lovely to try them in the acoustic that I'm really used to and test them against my own instrument. I could also let family and friends hear them. The overwhelming opinion was that I should have the white New Voice flute, but my instinct was the black one. It was the flute I went back to again and again. The New Voice is considerably lighter in weight and has a much, much bigger and brighter sound, but the Grenaditte one won my heart and is now mine and I've no doubts about my decision.

I really love it. It's got me back to doing some really serious practice. It's very different to a silver flute, I think that's what I like. It's also made me realise how wonderful my Altus is. What do I like about the Guo? It's light, it has a lovely 'wood-like' sound, it is great over all octaves, the key work is light and it is so easy to articulate. My only slight concern is the intonation, but I'm working on it. Happily. So if things get behind with Flutewise, it could be because I'm happily doing a bit of serious flute playing, as I really should.