Upgrading from a basic student model is a serious decision. Take your time. Ask if you can borrow the flute for a week, especially if it has open hole keys and your student model has none.
If your fingers are quite long, test an inline G model. If you blow particularly hard, test a thick walled model. Consider an upgraded headjoint for a better sound. Try out several headjoints with one flute body.
Now that you are ready to identify some music for testing, here are some thoughts. See also the section on what not to do.
Warm up with the instrument by playing low, long tones, putting fingers down gently in the center of each key.
Slowly play a chromatic scale, from bottom to top, listening carefully to each note. Use a tuner to check intonation. Every note should speak just as easily as the previous one, with a full sound.
Blow octaves, which should be really easy, from first to second octave. Second to third should also be easy. But are they in tune?
Play octaves quickly to test for speed and ease. Check both lower to upper and upper to lower. The flute should speak any note easily, with little movement of your lips or jaw.
Play at least 2 exercises with lots of skips, the wider the better. All the notes should be easy to achieve.
Play some high octave studies. The flute should speak easily, you should be able to get a fuller sound by dropping your jaw slightly and really giving good breath support.
Play some favorite literature with long, warm, flowing melody. The sound should be full and wonderful.
You should NOT need to press hard on keys to get good coverage.
Use a tuner to play several scales, arpeggios, and leaps. They should come into tune easily. The more keys you press down, the better and more consistently the note should be in tune, but nasty notes, such as B, C, E3 etc. should be reasonable.
The very top half octave should have a clear, sweet sound, not a thin piercing shriek.
The bottom half octave should have a rich, warm sound. The more you play this flute, the better it should sound, and the more you should enjoy playing it.
The 3 parts of the flute should fit together easily, without binding.
The instrument should look new, clean, bright, unblemished and well engineered. There should not be screws sticking out of sockets. Protruding wires should be very short.
Do not rush through a decision. Do not find a practice room and just blow a few notes while someone waits for you. You will be joyful every time you play if you choose the right instrument.
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