Flute head joints

[sessionsax]

Do they really make a huge difference. I have been told that by placing a good aftermarket head joint on an intermediate silver bodied flute that you can have a flute that plays better that a stock pro model.

If the answer is yes, what headjoint do you recommend and what are its playing characteristics.

[Gordon (NZ)]

It depends entirely on just what head joint you got with the flute. You have to try some. Yes, they vary enormously, and the quality is not necessarily related to price.

It also depends on what the limiting factor is, the player or the instrument. The biggest factor affecting the sound is the player, then the head, by a long way, providing there are not leaks in the rest of the flute.

Note that the crown cork out of position can turn to the sound of a good head to custard.

There are perhaps 30 makers of very good heads.
You could not go wrong with the standard Muramatsu one used on GE or GX model flutes. Other great heads are standard on flutes made by Altus, Haynes, Yamaha, Powell, Altus, probably Miyazawa.......... Different models of flute may have different heads.

If you get one form a specialist head maker (Bootman will put in a plug for the Australian maker, Lehner) you will have many difficult choices to make. - metal combinations and prices.

[sessionsax]

Gordon, I have the stock headjoint on my Yamaha intermediate.

It sounds like choosing a Headjoint is like trying to get the right Sax mouthpiece, just more expensive.

Are there any standards? Kinda like a vintage link and a MKVI tenor or an old meyer for alto?

Do you know of any resources to gain information and not marketing hype?

I get a really good sound on flute as it is now, but I am always looking to improve. I have been getting more flute work than sax work lately, so I am upping the anny on getting the flute chops and knowledge up.

[Bootman]

I would chek out as many head joints as you can. As Gordon pointed out, there are many fine makers of high quality head joints, prices and quality vary enormously. A better quality flute body can make a difference too but in the end it has to play well for you.

Have fun chasing something down. A great headjoint is unlikely to be cheap either so start saving.

[Gordon (NZ)]

....It sounds like choosing a Headjoint is like trying to get the right Sax mouthpiece, just more expensive..

Quite correct. And that is why I haven't gone far down that road, even though I have played many heads on customers flutes. I am not so serious about playing as I once was.

As for your other questions, I cannot really help. You need to try a variety, somehow.

[saxboy]

The Flute Convention is in Los Vegas this August. Lots of great flutes and a one stop for head joints. My flute teacher/friend is going to check out head joints. I am going with a group of flutists to try heads and bass flutes.
Different materials, design and quality all factor in to huge differences in sound and projection.
I played Wood head joints at NAMM and found them very interesting but not to the point of $1000 price tag.
As per above post; it is just like shaping your tone with a mouthpiece or neck. If you add the 2 of those together the price of a flute head joint is pretty cheap. My Tenor neck and mouthpiece cost $1300 ten years ago.
The good stuff is worth the price if it makes you sound that much better.
SAXBOY

[Ol Danl]

Has anyone tried the De Medici headjoints on a lesser expensive flute? I've noticed they are less expensive than other headjoints at WW&BW. Just wondering. Also, is there a practical limit to how much a headjoint tenon can be stretched? I've recently been looking at a website that had a list comparing different tenon diameters, and they can vary quite a bit. I don't have the address of this site, but look under "goferjoe." This list has several old Artleys that are in the range of .780" to .785" --- one of the wooden headjoints WW&BW sells supposedly has a tenon with a diameter of .733". I would think to make this work in the Artley you would have to have a sleeve made, or something. Have I been staring at the WW&BW catalog too much?

[Dr G]

If you get one form a specialist head maker (Bootman will put in a plug for the Australian maker, Lehner) you will have many difficult choices to make. - metal combinations and prices.

Well, if Bootman won't step up to the obvious task, I will. I bought a used Lehner flute that had found its way to the midwest and it has done wonders for my playing. I'd been using the various intermediate Gemeinhardt flutes (3S, 3SB) for doubling over the last 20 years. This new/used flute has made all that practice pay off. In a nutshell, a good headjoint - by whatever maker - can make a serious difference in your sound. For that matter, so can a bad headjoint. :lol:

[Dr G]

Note that the crown cork out of position can turn to the sound of a good head to custard.

Hey! You make custard sound like it's a bad thing.

[mostly alto guy]

Note that the crown cork out of position can turn to the sound of a good head to custard.

But how you know if that crown cork is in the right position? If you can tell, and it's not, what do you do?

[saxboy]

I think the main issue with position would be how far it is in. Why does that sound so bad?
:oops:
A cleaning rod has a mark on the end for checking the position. It is supposed to be in the middle of the whole when inserted in the head joint.
The only other issue would be if the cork is damaged or loose fitting from getting old.
SAXBOY

[sessionsax]

Is there no standard headjoint that works well for the majority of folks.

Again, like the mark vi and old meyer.

The must be a headjoint that is a standard upgrade

[Gordon (NZ)]

But how you know if that crown cork is in the right position? If you can tell, and it's not, what do you do?

The basic 'standard' position is such that the tube terminates 17 mm from the centre of the embouchure hole. and there should be no leaks, and no gap between the metal end of the tube and the cork that is behind it.

If it is less than 17 mm, screw the crown at the end clockwise, firmly. This drags the cork further out.

If it is more than 17 mm, unscrew the crown(anticlockwise) a few turns and press it firmly in until it meets the tubing again. Then adjust as above, by screwing the end clockwise.

The head of a flute has quite a taper at this end. If the cork has been pulled out too far for any length of time, the cork becomes compressed and leaks when it is returned to the correct position.

Another problem is when the threaded 'washer' that mounts the cork securely, is loose.

[MojoBari]

...I have the stock headjoint on my Yamaha intermediate.

You probably have the Yamaha CY headjoint which is a very good stock headjoint. If you play a lot of flute, you may want to look into Yamaha's EC headjoint. A year or 2 ago Yamaha started stocking their higher end flutes with this headjoint. My wife has one. They only cost about $600 and will most likely fit your flute without resizing (an additional cost).

If you have a developed embouchure and good breathing, you can get a bigger sound out of the EC. I have a Yamaha BC which I think is bigger yet, but the trade off for me is perhaps fast articulation in the 3rd register. I'm a little limited by my fingers anyhow so it is difficult to judge. These are low resistance headjoints/cuts.

Another think you can look for is a repair tech who can do a "Cooper cut" on your headjoint. I would not do this on a Yamaha, but I did do it to my older flute (a sliver-headed Reynolds). They rounded the top sides of the tone hole and under cut it some. I liked the change and it was only $50. Probably ~$100 now.

[mostly alto guy]

Many thanks, Gordon. It's dead on 17mm. Thanks to Bootman as well.

[sessionsax]

Thanks mojo -- thats good advice, I will check into it. Also, I consider the third octave a bit of a challenge myself.

[Gordon (NZ)]

....Another think you can look for is a repair tech who can do a "Cooper cut" on your headjoint. I would not do this on a Yamaha, but I did do it to my older flute (a sliver-headed Reynolds). They rounded the top sides of the tone hole and under cut it some. I liked the change and it was only $50. Probably ~$100 now.

I would be cautious about getting this done ujnless it was by a person very, very knowledgable about flute head design.

The design is a package, involving many inter-related different parameters, so altering one component, such as the over or under-cutting, CAN have disastrous results.

I have experience of altering a particularly poor-sounding model of Gemeinhard flute, very successfully - dozens of times. (And it takes less than a minute!)

I did the same to my personal, older model Muramatsu head, which measured up poorly alongside current models. It went a lot better, so I took off tiny bit more metal (still a lot less chamfering than most current top model heads.

Quite suddenly the sound went rather dead around the area of 'E' in the second octave.

[MojoBari]

Interesting you should mention a dead area around E2. I had no problems with my Cooper mod headjoint (it was done by someone with the appropriate experiance), but I did with the Yamaha CY headjoint. My wife and I both though it had a dead/resistant spot around E2-F#2. We lived with it for years thinking it was an OK trade off because we liked the rest of what the Yamaha was doing. It went away with our headjoint changes.

[Gordon (NZ)]

I've often noticed this 'E' trade-off with Pearl flutes.

[I. Fallon]

Well, I recently stepped up to purchase a Powell silver headjoint on eBay (with wife's permission). I has not arrived yet. The seller is permitting a return period offer. I am combining it with a Artley Wilkins Model closed hole flute with a C foot which has, by far, the best sound of anything that I have ever played on.

A lot of my recent improvement on the flute is by studying Gordon's beginner instructions and on harmonic series. I will post after the Powell arrives.

[Ivy]

I. Fallon, how old is the headjoint you bought and what kind of embrouchure cut did it have eg. Philharmonic, Boston cut?

I bought one of ebay a year ago for an incredible price of 400$ and I'm very happy with it. It's flexible, projects better, and responds better, much better than my old headjoint. I have the philharmonic cut- it's amazing! You're in for a treat if it's a recent model.

[singlereed]

The best place to go to look at headjoints is a flute specialist shop - we have 3 or 4 in the UK for example. Luckily, there is one near where we live (Justflutes - Jonathan Myall, in Croydon) and we happen to know both the proprietor and the flute tech/headjoint maker who is based there (Ian Mclauclan). It was they who first got our daughter on the road to flute playing and I had always promised her one of Ian's headjoints when she was ready. In the UK, you could also go to Topwind or allfutes Plus, both in London.

Anyhow, after 5 years of study, we got ourselves down there and tried loads of headjoints including Powell and Michael Allen (another UK hand maker). Ian McLauchlan offers three distinct lip-plate variations and after a long time play testing we settled on one of those, and it has worked out fine. Ian told me he spent some months in the USA looking at different ways of making headjoints and settled on a method that was reliable and gave good results - the tube is placed on a former (can't remember the proper name for the conical metal rod) and forced through a steel ring, that shapes the tube and also burnishes the metal. He said there is a theory that this helps maintain the natural tension in the metal compared to some mass production methods.

There was some science to the way the different lip plates performed, and just like sax mouthpiece characteristics do things to the sound, then so it was with the headjoint. Not everyone likes Ian's headjoints, but many pros use them, as does my very proud daughter. The cost was about £700 but in conjunction with careful fitting of the joint and a service to her intermediate level flute, she has a superb set-up. The next step up would be a very expensive flute! Look under 'repairs' on http://www.justflutes.com and follow the links to Ian's pages.

[I. Fallon]

Hi Ivy. I have been told that it is fairly new in that it has the Powell emblem but is not imprinted with the name.

My teacher uses a Powell Bostonian headjoint on a Yamaha flute. She would know what it is when it gets here. I will report when I know.

[I. Fallon]

Hi Ivy.

The Powell headjoint arrived.

It was a little loose for my flute so I went to my friend the woodwind repairman. He expanded it in short order (and copied the cut as best he could into his Heritage). He was not an unbiased critic on the Powell, as he loves them.

We still have no idea as to the cut, as there were no markings on it other than the Powell logo. It "slots" each note very well, and is as equally powerful on the very low notes as on the very high notes. I will report back when my teacher has a crack at it.

[Ivy]

Happy for you I. Fallon. It takes time to get used to a new headjoint, sort of like meeting a new person. You will have to play a lot of pieces and a lot of testing its limitations by extreme playing. It took me several months to know the headjoint. A friend realized that he didn't really know the finer subtle charactertics of his Powell Aurumite Traditional cut flute until more than a year of playing.

It probably came with a Powell 2100 model flute because it has no Powell markings. It should say Boston on the bottom of the Powell triangle logo and a letter underneath would indicate the cut. P for philharmonic, B for Boston, T for traditional. But it could be another model from another time which I wouldn't be familiar with.

Hope you like what you will discover.

[DC]

Hello all,

Nice discussion and tips here. I've recently picked up a Goosman Butterfly, and have had great success with this headjoint on my meager student model Yamaha. I've got to play closed hole, offset G because of some nerve damage in the left hand. Will one day get a Haynes, but for now, as a tenor player/doubler, I'm quite pleased with the "butterfly". There's a website for them, and price is about $1,000. I got mine used off of ebay for $625. Much more focus, projection, etc. than before, worth a try, the literature available on these states that lots of jazz sax doublers are using them. Must fit it to the Yamaha though, not a big deal, I repair as well.

cheers, DC