I don’t have a lot of time to go into detail right now, but first impressions:
1. I was nervous about the orange color, but in person it is actually quite stunning and tasteful. The 12 year-old Mickey might have wanted a bright orange flute, but I’m not 12 any more and this is really eyecatching in a good way.
2. The mechanism feels effortless. Admitedly, the flute I’ve been playing on since high school isn’t exactly a marvel of flute-making technology, but the New Voice is sooo much easier to play from a technical standpoint. I haven’t had a ton of time to fiddle with it, but I whipped through a few chromatic scales and felt like my fingers were flying. We’re talking about moving a few milimeters against a tiny amount of resistance, but even in that limited rage of motion the change was dramatic.
3. The headjoint is not nearly as resistant as the one on my old flute. Throughout the entire range of the instrument, notes are very easy to produce. There’s no need for a split E mechanism when the note can be played so effortlessly. I also found harmonics much simpler to produce than on the silver flute. The low end is nice as well. The lowest notes are consistently easy to produce, although it may take some more adjustment on my part to get a fatter tone in the low register.
4. I will be honest in saying that up close this flute looks and feels like a toy. It does not sound like a toy. The incredibly light weight will really come in handy as I work on Ambidextranata (Gary Schocker). It’s a piece for flute and piano, one player. Basically you play the flute with your left hand and accompany yourself on piano with your right hand. The balancing act of playing a C# with one hand will be much simpler with the lighter flute.
That’s all I have time for right now. I’ll have to see about getting some decent audio files up so that people can judge the sound quality for themselves. The Grenaditte model should be here in the next couple of weeks, so I’ll be able to make more comparisons then.
