David Guo, Pearly and Ron Korb in the Guo offices in Taichung.

In 2010, I visited Guo Flutes in Taichung, Taiwan. This innovative company was founded in 1988 by the two Guo brothers Geoffrey and David making conventional concert flutes. Now they focus primarily on instruments made from a composite material they developed called Grenaditte. The instruments with all their components, including the body, keys, and levers are all injection moulded. Even the pads are made of silicon. My father is a mould maker so I can appreciate the challenges they must have faced in designing and manufacturing these instruments. A remarkable thing about these instruments is their weight. They seem to weigh nothing. The original idea was to help a flutist friend of theirs that, due to an injury, found it difficult to play a flute of standard weight.

The Guo flutes are partly futuristic and partly inspired by the historic wooden flutes of Rudall and Carte. Like wooden flutes the keys contact the body of the flute directly without any raised tone holes. Because the flutes are injection moulded they can be cast in any color. White, orange, black, silver and their most popular color amongst teenage girls – PINK!!!

Their main business is making C open holed concert flutes but they also make G flutes as well as piccolos and a bass flute. They also make head joints that fit onto any Boehm system flute. The flutes come with these very light, durable aluminum cases that I think they should make into a side business. They are like a little road case for a flute.

Guo concert flutes

They lent me their black Grenaditte model to try in concert. The sound doesn’t have any of the shrill quality of metal in the upper register but it doesn’t really sound like wood either. It is definitely unique. I would have liked the opportunity to record with them to hear the sound objectively. Guo flutes blow very easy and the silicon pads seem to respond lightning fast.

While I was practicing I had a little revelation. I noticed that the flute required practically no tension particularly in the fingers. It relaxed my hands and I found that when I switched back to my silver flute I played with less tension as well.