How many of you have played a wooden flute? There are many different varieties out there, from traditional Native American instruments to pan flutes to fife-like instruments, but the ones I want to talk about today are the traditional, C-scale flute that we generally think of, only made entirely of grenadilla (or similar) wood!
Wooden flutes have become more popular in the United States over the past ten or so years, as players have been looking for different modifications to make their sound a bit more unique. Many brands offer wooden headjoints that can be placed on a metal body for a different sound without the investment of purchasing an entire wood instrument. Most wood flutes are made of grenadilla wood, the same type of wood from which piccolos and clarinets are made. This becomes rather expensive when talking about an entire instrument, as a large piece of this wood must be cut and constructed from the best quality materials. Because of the tone quality of wood versus metal instruments and the thicker wall of the instrument, wooden flutes are generally much more resistant and require a greater amount of air to produce a similar sound. The sound on a wood flute is traditionally much more dark and mellow, but some modern flute makers, such as Sankyo, have designed their wood flutes to carry many of the bright, shimmering characteristics as their metal instruments.
Check out Sankyo’s wood flute here, and also take a look at artist Nina Perlove playing one of their wood flutes in this video here! As always, contact Erin with any questions! Have a great week!