I have been playing my Phillip Hammih wooden flute for 7 months today, so I wanted to write a short sitrep.
I played on a Yamaha 281 for around 12 years, and last year, in august, I figured out I needed something better. My dream flute has always been a wooden one, so I took my car and went to the bank, and being a poor master's student, well... I had to argue and negociate a bit (having a 600€/month job and a rent to pay, you know how easily banks would give me 10k
), but hey! Came home and bought a Phillip Hammig 658/2/R.About the model :
Grenadilla Wood
Offset G
E-mechanism
C foot
Here is a pic :
Let's get started!
About the material :
As we could imagine, the material condition matches the price...No scratches at all, nice finish. The key mechanism had no play at all, and felt pretty solid. Only thing I could say, was that the pads where really sticky. I mean, really. Scared me a little bit, but it disappeared after a couple of days.
The flute is thicker than a metal one (for obvious reasons), and I have to admit that it bothered me a bit, but you get used to it pretty fast. And I even prefer the thickness of the wooden flute now, because it feels more natural for the left index finger (as he is less contorted).
The head joint has a singular architecture. Contrarily to a regular flute (headjoint with "male" tennon goint in te body), this headjoint has a "female" tennon, it is the body that goes into the headjoint. The body has a thick tennon with cork.
The following picture found on the internet shows it :
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/images/New_ ... _Slide.gif
I was just mondering how could I adapt a regular headjoint on it if I wanted to ? Anyway, don't need/want to for the moment. So far so good.
Then about the lip plate hole.
This one has a "reform" shape (that's how it is called on the Hammig website). This is a sort of bulge rear to the hole.
I don't know if this is only cosmetic, or if it is actually adding something to the tone quality. What I do know however, is that I had to completely change my mouth position and embouchure to play on this flute (compared to the Yamaha), so I'm guessing this "reform" has something to do with it !
(the third one is a crappy chinese flute, nevermind)
About the sound :
Here we are ! Well let me tell you this : I totally fell in love with the tone shooting out from this beautiful piece of wood and metal. Alright enough poetry.
I'm one of those who think material has no impact on tone. BUT, when a manufacturer crafts a flute in wood, gold or so, they do it with better care and precision than in a cheap material, wich leads to a better tone. Anyway, this flute is definitely a solid hell of an instrument.
Don't get me wrong, I never played another 10k+ flute, so I couldn't say this is TOP quality, but it certainely is far far beyond any flute I have handled myself, and I went back (after all those years) to see my old flute teacher, she said it was excellent quality too.
Wanna know what impressed me the most? How easy it is to play a givent note with it, compared to the Yamaha. There is so much more air volume and power needed to fire an A3 with the Yamaha than the Hammig, I mean this is truely amazing.
Also, I figured out how hard it was on the Yamaha to play pianissimo ! The Hammig is extremely sensitive, a sigle tiny flow of air and you got a note. Lovely.
All of that should seem obvious for all of you having great instruments, but I only had a Yamaha 281, so you can imagine the gap between those two flutes.
Finally, about taking care of it, well the key is avoiding temperature and humidity changes, so that the wood does not microscopically cracks. Over time, this harms the wood severely.
Alright, I think I said it all.
Last thing : I love it. Period !
Pock'