Hulusi/Bawu Reeds?

[zarnaik]

Hey everyone. 

I recently bought a bawu flute (in essence a hulusi without drones) in F-key. 
I was looking for reserve reeds and came across THESE.

Now I am wondering what is the difference between the different keys for a reed?
For these types of flutes, is it the flute itself that defines the key or the reed? If the latter is true, can I change the key and buy a G/C/Bb-key reed for my instrument?

Thank you

[edcat7]

Hi Zarnaik and welcome,

It's the flute that defines the key and not the reed. A photo of your bawu would be good because most of the bawus I've seen
have the mouth piece glued on, covering the reed.

If you recently bought your bawu it should not be necessary to change the reed (with normal usage) for a couple of years; provided the
reed included is new.

Best wishes,

Ed

[zarnaik]

Thanks for clarifying.

My bawu's mouthpiece is a little different from the regular transverse flutes.
It slides over the reed and is easily detachable. The reed itself is glued in, but wouldn't be hard to replace.

I'm glad glad to hear the reed can be used for quite some time.
I knew it wasn't anything like the dimo for a dizi, but didn't expect years of worth. That's why I thought to stock up at least an extra in advance.

[edcat7]

I have so many instruments and I'm away from home for six months but I vaguely remember buying a very similar bawu. Enjoy!

ps. Hongyueqi also sells a hulusi song book with 2 cd's. There's a couple of tunes in that book specifically for G key.

[zarnaik]

Thanks for the tip. I was eyeing this one.

Seeing as my flute is F instead of G, do you think I'd run into trouble trying to play music for G-key instruments?
I reckon I could just play everything one note lower in case that the highest is used in a certain arrangement.
Being a music theory newbie I have no idea if that would work though.

[edcat7]

It's possible to play F tunes on a G DIZI, but I doubt that is possible on a bawu.

[zarnaik]

Okay, thanks for all your input