I have recently had a wooden headjoint crafted by Mark Hoza, an American living in Australia. I am writing this simply to share my experience.
I play a golden Haynes flute, which allowed me to achieve a full range of different colours of sound. I have still, however, been interested in trying to get an authentic baroque sound. This started when I got an old wooden Hammig flute. It was in very good condition but I wanted to replace its metal headjoint with a wooden one. A student of mine gave me Mark Hoza’s address and it went from there. I can honestly say that getting a wooden headjoint from Mark has been one of the most fantastic experiences of my life. Mark started off by asking me what I wanted to achieve and has worked with me to get what I expected – and then some.
I have found that Mark’s headjoints work exceptionally well with both a wooden flute and a precious metal flute. Describing the sound qualities of the headjoints is difficult to put into words that do them justice. What I can say is that the headjoints that Mark has sent me to test are easy to play, have very good intonation and an amazingly powerful sound. The dynamic range is incredible – from the softest piano to forte without changing the pitch! On top of that it is so easy to get a wide variety of colour from an extremely warm and wooden sound to one that is very penetrating yet still with fantastic and crisp articulation Overall, I can say that thanks to these qualities Mark Hoza’s headjoints can be used to play any kind of music.
For a flute player one of the most exciting things to happen is to feel that the whole instrument is vibrating – your fingers can feel the flute responding. With the wooden headjoints I have tried I have noticed that this happens all the time and not just on your good days!
All I can say is that working with Mark has been both fun and creative and has resulted in me getting a fantastic, well-crafted and extremely versatile flute.
Lecturer in flute
Northern Territory University, Australia