You might remember I wrote here about how we bought a flute for Mulan in China. We got it from a friend of Laolao's friend, who used to make flutes. At the time we chose to trust him completely with what would be best for Mulan, as we don't know enough about flutes to trust ourselves.
When Mulan tried the flute out before we bought it, she commented that it was hard to play the low notes. The friend's response at the time was that Mulan has been used to playing a Yamaha, which has larger keys, and it will just take a bit of time for her to get used to this other one. Fair enough we thought, so we bought it.
When we got back to New Zealand, Gugu, who has played the flute for many years and teaches it part time, had a look at the new flute. She immediately spotted three problems with it:
- The low notes are hard to play because a key isn't sealing properly, as it is not properly aligned.
- A pad is cracked, and will need replacing soon.
- Another pad is sticky and loose, and will also need replacing soon.
The clear message is that this is an old flute that at the very least needs a good servicing. And that would cost about half again what we paid for it. Either the friend should service it or give us a refund. The friend chose to give a refund.
So, with no one else to trust to help us get a good cheap flute, in the end we went with the tried and trusted and bought a Yamaha.
Mama bought a YFL-212DR online for 2468 Yuan. It also came with a music stand, which the girls are delighted with. Hopefully we will have many years of trouble-free playing with this flute.
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