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typical pro flute is silver, not gold, but actually it really is typical to make em out of precious metals sometimes. silver is more of a 2-4k usd price point if it's before mass music, you gotta bling it up sometimes
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May 3, 2024 04:21
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Shipon posted:Yeah my tuition and everything was entirely free but I still had a ton of loans because it all went to paying for rent and the other basics of life The problem is compounded by America having a culture of people moving state or otherwise out of home to go to college.
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May 3, 2024 04:22
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Organza Quiz posted:The problem is compounded by America having a culture of people moving state or otherwise out of home to go to college. A lot of schools require that you live on-campus for your first year two on top of that (though usually just freshman year, if they have that requirement). Why no, of course the dorm isn't free when they do that.  Or the mandatory meal plan.
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May 3, 2024 04:35
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bob dobbs is dead posted:typical pro flute is silver, not gold, but actually it really is typical to make em out of precious metals sometimes. silver is more of a 2-4k usd price point I grew up with a lot of people that went on to become professional musicians. A $10k flute is what my most serious and well-off high school classmates played. $30-80k is a lot, but not unheard of for a professional.
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May 3, 2024 04:44
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Cugel the Clever posted:Music teacher probs making mad money on kickbacks from the seller.
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May 3, 2024 04:52
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drk posted:lol, apparently there are quite a few flutes that are made out of literal solid 14K gold and cost many tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah from what I recall it definitely had gold. The note from the professor was about how it was important he had an instrument like this as he was transitioning from student to colleague. I remember that very clearly because I was thinking, "So you're going to get him a job with tenure so he can pay off all this debt?" (spoiler, no) Here's the thing, you're only taking out private loans for that flute if you're maxed on federal loans. This was a cost of attendance adjustment, so my guy had already leveraged the max he could get in federal and private to the tune of around 40k for that school year. On top of that he was adding 80k in private loans for that flute. All the people I saw absolutely drowning themselves in debt so that they could follow their dream depressed me to no end. 15 years ago and I still think about that guy. Raskolnikov2089 fucked around with this message at 05:27 on May 3, 2024 |
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May 3, 2024 05:19
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I could see a 30k flute being a justifiable purchase for a professional fluteist. flautist? flatulist? Taking out loans for an 80k flute in addition to your 30k flute just sounds like you're being ripped off.
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May 3, 2024 08:45
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Jesus, I felt hard done by having to buy 8k of tools for a trade qual. One of my high school friends went about 40k in the hole becoming a professional DJ, which just lol.
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May 3, 2024 09:06
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Musical instruments are one of those things where there's no price ceiling thanks to being able to sell people their dreams.
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May 3, 2024 09:09
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I assume there are any number of subtle artisan touches that distinguish fine flutemaking from the common tin whistle. I also assume they don’t really have much to do with making the drat thing out of platinum.
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May 3, 2024 09:14
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Jabor posted:I could see a 30k flute being a justifiable purchase for a professional fluteist. flautist? flatulist? Flautist, yep
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May 3, 2024 11:35
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Jabor posted:I could see a 30k flute being a justifiable purchase for a professional fluteist. flautist? flatulist? This is interesting to me, because I know nothing about the practical economics of professional instruments. What makes a professional flute cost 30K in a “reasonable” scenario, and what do people think they’re getting in the 80K ones that isn’t really “worth it”?
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May 3, 2024 11:49
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At some point it becomes an emotional thing. You're a professional flutist, you've spent your entire life training to be this thing. Most likely you know you'll never be the one who has a fancy car or gigantic house but that's not really your concern. The people you surround yourself with can probably look at your flute from a distance and think "oh wow that's a 70k flute right there" or "lol he's got a Walmart rental". It's the thing you practice with everyday and the thing you use to earn money.
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May 3, 2024 12:17
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I suspect someone like that just figures they’re hosed anyway, so might as well take advantage. If that’s the 8th year of $40k of loans, what’s another $80k on top of that $320k? Neither is repayable on a musician’s typical pay, unless he’s in the narrow minority that sees commercial success. And a lot of people doesn’t necessarily understand that the loans are non-dischargeable, so from their perspective defaulting is defaulting. The reality is more likely he’ll be in an office job in 20 years (I guess 5 now), struggling to pay rent and those student loans at the same time. Hopefully the flute is still in good shape.
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May 3, 2024 12:37
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The value of the flute presumably doesn't disappear and the market for platinum flutes is presumably shallow enough that there aren't loads being made to depress the price so it's more like a securitized loan. You'd need a very specialised insurance policy though. Also here's an on point Flight of the Conchords lyrics on this subject: quote:So you think maybe you'll be a prostitute
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May 3, 2024 12:55
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You guys aren't thinking of the bigger picture here, imagine all that flute equity he's got now!
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May 3, 2024 12:56
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Yikes. I just bought my son a used professional tenor sax from the mid 80s and that only cast 2k.
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May 3, 2024 13:08
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I guess the 80k flute serves as a signaling mechanism to your PhD committee that they should graduate you because you’ve completely committed to their cult/world?
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May 3, 2024 13:23
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I know audiophiles are cheating with BWM, but I do think instruments tend to follow the audiophile curve where, yeah, for the first few hundred dollars you see incredible incremental quality jumps, but after you hit the low-4-figures it's more marginal, and after a certain point it's straight up psychosomatic. These people aren't doing spectrum analysis to see what kind of frequencies they're hitting, they're just vibing Once you hit 5 figures it's more about impressing other people in the know (like your PhD committee), or, for the more gauche, to say "this is a $xx,xxx instrument/system". I recently picked up a keyboard to learn piano and while the people at the local guitar center were pretty chill there was definitely an undercurrent of "if you are serious about learning you can get this model for just a few hundo more, and if you're gonna do that anyway these other models blow that out of the water and are just a little more than that" and no dude I just need the cheapest thing with 88 weighted keys and a sustain pedal
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May 3, 2024 13:26
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lotta you grew up not spending much time around professional classical musicians i take it Most of you are thinking of the instrument in terms of a hobby or like the thing that you do on the weekends to pick up some beer money at the bar. The top end instrument market is for serious professionals with very high levels of skill and personal preference. This is not spend $30-100K on a thing that you practice on for an hour a day. You play so, so much to get to a high level, and having an instrument that precisely suits your preferences is the difference between you getting a permanent chair and you just teaching lessons to 14 year olds and gigging at a decent level. These players will be able to tell the difference between various flutes (in this example) and have preferences about various details of construction and other things. Here's Powell's, a high end flute manufacturer: https://www.powellflutes.com/en/instruments/handmade-custom/ These instruments are targeted at either high end amateurs with more money than sense or legitimate, best 10,000 in the world tier players. Once you get to really elite levels within that best 10,000 in the world tier, there's also a prestige factor. A lot of very, very nice instruments are owned by trusts or foundations and loaned out to musicians, often on permanent loan. This means that your body of work is such that someone who owns a truly unique instrument that is essentially priceless is going to just let you play it for free. This is a pretty big flex over fellow musicians and means that you will get work, because fundamentally the people that fund classical music are prestige oriented. edit: the instrument business definitely targets amateurs who think they are better than they are or who desire to be better than they are and that is the tier you all are talking about, when you move from a sub-1K instrument to like a $5k instrument. For most people their talent will never exceed the capabilities of a roughly $5K instrument. Like for me I spent my childhood playing a lot at a decently high level and I outgrew a $1500 instrument but not a $7500 dollar instrument. KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 13:36 on May 3, 2024 |
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May 3, 2024 13:32
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2-4k usd vs. 10k, 30k, 80k usd flute is deffo mainly just a wealth and power thing because at that point actually getting a job has material schmoozing and luck components classical music as a career, as i understand it, belongs right the gently caress here on this thread, with the ridiculous number of vicious bastards and rapists at high levels and mere hundreds of jobs that let you exist as a person in the cities that the symphonies and orchestras are at and the decades of training required and all bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 13:45 on May 3, 2024 |
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May 3, 2024 13:41
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:lotta you grew up not spending much time around professional classical musicians i take it Can they tell the difference? IIRC studies have had trouble finding people who can pick Stradivarius violins from new violins. EDIT: I'm assuming you mean they can tell the difference in the sound. You might have meant the difference in how it feels to play, which I think is much more credible.
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May 3, 2024 13:41
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I will absolutely concede that my experience is colored by my experience growing up around the audiophile set, which, surprise surprise, has a huge crossover contingent with the amateur musician set. I have seen a lot of 5-figure instruments being rolled out more for appearances than for play. The sad bit is that most of these guys had dreams of being musicians but abandoned them because it's not a realistic career in the America of today (or even the America they grew up in 30-40 years ago). The hour or two a day was all they had once they started making a "real" living.
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May 3, 2024 13:45
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I knew the second* violin in my (large) city’s orchestra and not only was her violin worth like 100k she would buy it its own plane ticket when she traveled with the orchestra because gently caress letting something like that out of her site * she probably would have eventually made first chair but at a certain point in her career her desire to move up was checked by refusal to fly on airplanes that enforced a no smoking policy
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May 3, 2024 13:45
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captkirk posted:Can they tell the difference? IIRC studies have had trouble finding people who can pick Stradivarius violins from new violins. correct the difference is primarily in how it plays and at some point this stops being universal. like a 10k flute is gonna play better than a 2k flute for like... everyone who is remotely competent. a 80k flute might play better than that 10k flute for some people but not others. bob dobbs is dead posted:2-4k usd vs. 10k, 30k, 80k usd flute is deffo mainly just a wealth and power thing because at that point actually getting a job has material schmoozing and luck components oh no argument there, pro classical music is primarily BWM even if you do make it but part of the schmoozing is around tools and status signalling
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May 3, 2024 13:49
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So would you, like, get a decent amount of time to try out the 80k flute before you commit to it? This is really interesting and so different from the solid body guitar world, where basically everything above, say, $2k is just fancy wood types, rare/collectible stuff and/or handmade construction and doesn’t necessarily play or sound any better than cheaper stuff (and also loses a bunch of value as soon as you start gigging with it, unless you’re famous)
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May 3, 2024 14:05
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carrionman posted:One of my high school friends went about 40k in the hole becoming a professional DJ, which just lol. Jesus Christ, how?! Venues have their own sound systems!
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May 3, 2024 14:24
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Music library could be part of it?
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May 3, 2024 14:38
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Sadly, no amount of money spent will make you look like less of a dork playing a flute.
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May 3, 2024 14:54
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Concatenation posted:So would you, like, get a decent amount of time to try out the 80k flute before you commit to it? Yeah if you're buying an 80k flute from Powell's you have a relationship with Powell's already. You've bought instruments from them before, you bring your instruments there for repair, etc. So part of the customization is you go in and play some stuff, maybe borrow a couple instruments they have, then tell them what you think you want. They probably do some measurements for arrangement of keys and stuff. They build something for you, you play it, and you say well I want this and that and the other thing adjusted and they do that, to the extent of remaking parts (or all) of the instrument. This is like, a craftsman tier bespoke object. Guitars, even handmade ones, are largely commoditized.
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May 3, 2024 14:56
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:lotta you grew up not spending much time around professional classical musicians i take it Agree with a lot of this. I play a string instrument and ended up settling on around the $6000 mark. There was a huge huge difference between it and my $500 starter and then my $2000 loaner. I can play at a community level on this and be just fine. Most of the folks I used to play with went on to become professional musicians (some got chairs in world class orchestras and some got MFAs and now teach; a wholeeee lot of bad with money there) and a typical string instrument cost was 20k-50k. A few had around the 10-15k mark. And yes, everybody I played with bought their instrument its own plane ticket with traveling, as well as a special travel case for the cellos. Bassists were screwed.
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May 3, 2024 15:02
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Buying expensive equipment as a substitute for practice time is true across most hobbies. I play tennis and there’s a subset of people who seem intimidating pre-match because they roll up with a full suite of customized racquets and specialized string setups but fall apart in match play because their technical game is bad. Just because professionals customize their racquets doesn’t mean they wouldn’t beat recreational players with my kid’s $25 minions racquet.
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May 3, 2024 15:47
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The difference is that up to a pretty high level there is a genuinely noticeable difference in how easy/comfortable it is to play an instrument. Or at least that was my experience with clarinets. Thankfully clarinets are pretty cheap in comparison to others, fully pro ones are like $4,000 (or were when I was learning 20 years ago at least, probably more now) and I was able to get one cheap for $2,500ish. It made a huge difference, wind instruments are mechanically complex enough that pro-level engineering of the instrument makes it quite noticeably easier to produce the note you want on demand and in tune at the right volume. Even as a mediocre student! I can definitely believe that at high levels you may want an instrument fully customised to your particular body that works with you exactly how you want.
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May 3, 2024 16:06
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Scratch Monkey posted:* she probably would have eventually made first chair but at a certain point in her career her desire to move up was checked by refusal to fly on airplanes that enforced a no smoking policy Goddamn. My high school ex-girlfriend is a professional flautist and professor at a university, and playing at that level takes a ridiculous amount of practice and dedication. I cannot imagine having the willpower to practice for hours upon hours a day, but not to go without a cigarette for the length of a plane flight. Smoking is definitely bad with money.
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May 3, 2024 16:10
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Recommending people to learn trombone since it is just a few tubes and should theoretically be cheaper.
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May 3, 2024 16:18
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A music PhD is very important if you want to train other people to become music PhDs.
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May 3, 2024 16:29
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Oil! posted:Recommending people to learn trombone since it is just a few tubes and should theoretically be cheaper. You would think so, but recall that a flute itself is just a single tube
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May 3, 2024 16:30
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the flute is actually just a series of valves. you can make one yourself at the hardware store. powells does not want you to know this.
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May 3, 2024 16:36
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withak posted:A music PhD is very important if you want to train other people to become music PhDs. oh yeah i mean none of this is necessary for a music PhD at a all because if you are really playing enough at a high enough level to justify an 80k flute you are not getting a music PhD because you have been doing the top tier pro flute thing for your whole life and you already own an 80k flute
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May 3, 2024 16:38
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 23:03 |
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:These players will be able to tell the difference between various flutes (in this example) and have preferences about various details of construction and other things.
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May 3, 2024 16:43
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