Super Shortest Headjoint You'll Ever See!

Dear Flutelovers,

Fast forward to the flute solos! And oops... don't spill your beverage on your keyboard as your jaw drops open in wonder!  Is that not the shortest flute headjoint you've ever seen? And played beautifully too!

Victoria Symphony - 30 day limited video

I'm a flute teaching neighbour of Richard Volet of the Victoria Symphony and wrote to him to ask about the headjoint that seems to be cork-less AND crown-less.

Richard replied:

Hi Jen:

Here's the story. I made this headjoint between fifteen and twenty years ago. I made two of them. The idea is simple. Everyone fools around with different stoppers and crown assemblies, which do indeed influence the sound. 

My thought was that all of that hardware (including the diamonds and rubies) is extraneous and interfering, so why not do away with it and simply end the tube with no extra apparatus and weight. 

I can't tell you if it is better, I would have to have made tons of them, and even then, it's the same old impossible comparison as different metals. 

My intuition and my sense playing this headjoint is that it is better.

 Back to the story. For fifteen or twenty years the headjoint has been sitting on my window ledge in the basement. A year or so ago I picked it up, played it a bit, looked at it, and thought I could improve it, so I recut it. I guess I didn't like it so I put it back on the window ledge. 

A month or so ago, I noticed it there one morning, took it upstairs to practice and have been playing it since. When I initially made it and cut off the north end where it should be, I got confused when measuring and trimming the south/tenon end, and I cut that off too short by around a centimeter, so it's short on both ends!

Feel free to post my story and a link to the video, on your website or FB. It will only be up for streaming for 30 days.

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Comments welcome! Yay for inventors!!!

Jen :>)