AAR Irish Professional Tunable D Flute with Hard Case 23" Length 3 Pcs

Just received it and have been hitting c’s all day to work on my embouchure. After a few tries and repositioning, hitting c’s at 440 every time. Light, sturdy, beautiful flute.

As a flute player I should have known this was garbage. But I had faith, because you “can” find a d flute of decent quality for under $50. I worked with the sloppily wound and chipped connections to create a seal, hit the sharp burrs off the embouchure, but the finger hole spacing and hole size is wrong for the bore and length. You could get some bondo and a Dremel and do something with this hacked up piece of beautiful wood, which I will do, ir use it to prop your sash windows open on hot summer days, or I had a parrot that would have loved this as a perch, so that’s another option.The case is shoddy, but I cut it out to hold some of my tobacco pipes and it works well for that.Sounds like some of you got a decent instrument. Bravo! The rest of us got garbage I would be ashamed to sell. Where are these being made? Are you outsourcing, throwing a flute hole pattern at them and a beautiful piece of wood and letting them have at it? I can get a more accurate tone out of the end of a bic ball point pen. Or a whiskey bottle.If you want a great sounding low cost musical wind instrument, other than a whiskey jug, get a $10 brass tin whistle, or a $15 Honer harmonica. This thing will make you hate the flute if you aren’t already hopelessly in love with flutes. And if you are in love with flutes, this thing will make you hate this company, and good lord if you happen to be Irish/Scottish too, you’re going to want to dig your battle tartan out and paint half your face blue, because how dare they insult our heritage by marketing this as an Irish or Scottish flute!!

This flute is gorgeous. I love the tone, the wood is so smooth to hold. She fits in her case perfectly. I love how sleek everything appears. She sounds lovely. I've wanted an Irish flute for a long time, so receiving her has been a dream come true!

I've had many flutes and penny whistles over the years and not once have I had as hard a time getting a clear not to play! I am going to try and tune it myself as I'm very handy, but I do not recommend buying this flute.

So, if you're really expecting a $40 flute to be professional (or even beginner) line, I've got a bridge to sell you. It's made of Gouda Cheese and located on the prime real estate of Europa, the smoothest moon of Jupiter. It's even a short commute to Venus!If I had REALLY expected it to be pro line, it'd be one star. Since I was expecting it to not be and looking forward to it as a fun toy to experiment with, it's four stars. It's fun. It's pretty. It's super light (which is yay for a toy flute; I'm not sure about for a pro wood flute because I've always been a metal flute player).If you're taking time to read the reviews before purchasing, let me tell you what I know. If you don't want to read the full thing, there's a pro/con summary down at the bottom.First off, Shipping. I'm in Alaska, and the flute made it to me in record time. 3 days? Lightning speed. SWEET! ...BUT, it was delivered straight to a mailbox. Outdoors. In winter. Below freezing. Serious musical instrument sellers do not do such cruel things to their babies, because their babies are works of art meant to be cherished. I have yet to buy a serious instrument from a serious instrument dealer where the dealer wasn't hovering (digitally or in person) to make sure that their baby was treated with respect.It survived the experience, so we'll add 'durable' to the pro column of 'this is best toy'. :)Upon arrival, the exteriors of both flute and case looked lovely. The interior of the case shows pretty cheap construction. The foam is easily visible as a cut away under a super thin fabric layer. Also, the flute has some fairly low grade cork (and it was super desiccated too, but that might be part of transport). I conditioned the cork with sooooo much corkgrease. Like, it soaked up the cork grease like no tomorrow, like it was starving for that love and affection and moisture.After half a tube of cork grease, the cork feels much much happier, but it's still not the best cork. It's well affixed to the flute (there's no gaps that give air leaks) so the actual work done with it is fine. It's just not lovely grade cork. But hey, $40 flute, they probably don't want to use more expensive cork. :)After giving the cork some much needed love and affection, it was playable. The tuning though, is wonky.So, a really good flute player can do some self tuning with breath control, embouchure, and/or rolling the head joint as a last resort. BUT to make every note in tune with this flute would take a LOT of work. I tuned the D, and then worked really hard at not self correcting each note, and this is what I ended up finding --For the less musically savvy, there are 100 cents between two adjacent pitches. So 100 cents between a D and E-flat. A D wood flute should play a D major scale without having to cross-finger (having an open hole between closed holes and the mouthpiece). Furthermore, with cross fingering, you should be able to get a C natural without too much work. So, Tuning, with all Numbers in Cents:Note Low Register Medium Register High RegisterD IN TUNE IN TUNE 30 SharpE 50 Flat 40 FlatF-sharp 60 Flat 40 FlatG 50 Flat 20 FlatA 30 Flat 20 SharpB 40 Flat 10 SharpC 50 Flat 20 Sharp with modified cross fingeringC-sharp 100 Flat (came out as an in tune C) Low Range and 50 Flat in Middle RangePlaying with the tuner and working like mad, I can get every note within 10 cents of where it should be, but it's a LOT of work. Also, unlike my more traditional flute, there's no easy way to adjust the internal cork in the head joint to try and narrow the octaves a bit (which would theoretically help get the flute closer to in tune).I have a pennywhistle I got for $0.25 at a garage sale that has more consistent tuning.Still, it's really FUN! So long as you have patience and a high tolerance for being out of OR you're ridiculous and don't mind doing a lot of work to tune yourself, it's a great little flute. It's also easy to play quietly, which my dog is a HUGE fan of. He loathes me practicing the metal one or god forbid the piccolo or the pennywhistles, but he doesn't mind this one at all. So, no barking dog while playing.Pro:LightDurableExternally pretty (case & flute); they look impressive until you open them.No air leaks at jointsVery Playable (once you get used to the headjoint, which takes just a bit)Produces sound that is distinctly flutelike with pleasantly whispery wood tone. :)Quiet instrument for indoor playingWill probably make you way better at self tuning in self defense.SUPER FUNCon:Ships directly to mailbox, no packaging provisions for rapid climate (temperature/humidity) changes.Substandard cork that needs much love and affection initiallyCase is actually rather shoddily constructed internallyIndividual notes are rather ridiculously out of tune without constant adjustment. (could be a pro if you like practicing self tuning, which is a very valuable skill for any flute player to develop)

Not playable. This is garbage. I can't believe I wasted $50 on this crap.

Overall it feels good and is visually appealing however upon opening the box and taking out the individual pieces all the metal ring adornments fell off.I’m a novice at this but I can’t for the life of me regardless of angle or position get a solid sound to come out.

How it sounds is my favorite part