Flute Care and Putting Your Flute Away
Does this really matter?
(yes.)
Video Transcript:
Well hi, I’m Rebecca Fuller here at Learn Flute Online where we are going to learn even more about what you need to know about your flute. We’ve been talking in this whole series, you’ll see a button on this page.
The whole series is how to choose a flute. Now in the membership area here at Learn Flute Online, for those of you who have joined, where we have the rest of the lessons hundred and thousands of them I should say all in sequential order for learning.
They are great! I totally highly endorse them, of course they are my lessons. I think they are fabulous and I have hundreds and thousands of testimonials from other students who also have been able to come and learn and enjoy from the lessons as well.
Well, today in this little part of this video series I want to make sure that we talk about something right off the bat here in case I don’t see you again for a little while in the membership area and that is, once you do get yourself a flute- we talk about all the different options for choosing one- I want to make sure you know something really important.
And that is that you keep your flute stored in the flute case. Yes! That is the number one more important thing I can tell you right here in this little video is because there are different things about a flute from say a piano or a guitar that well it’s good to put those away as well, but definitely with the flute.
First of all they are made out of precious metal that tarnishes so bad if it is left out. So you’re picking up your flute to play for the day and practice and learn some more, congratulations.
Just clean it out, I’ll show you how to do that too, and put it away in the case every single day. It needs to sleep in the case that is closed and locked. Not only will it keep it safe, but it will keep it from tarnishing and looking really gross. So I have a couple of little examples I want to give you that might sound kind of funny to you maybe, which they are not really because I get comments like this all the time from my online students.
The other day I had a student send me an email and say this. She said, or he I can’t remember now, said, “Rebecca, can you help me learn how to carry my flute better while I ride bike? It keeps getting scratched.” and I thought, well. I had to step back for a second and compose myself because first of all the flute is so delicate, so delicate and it seems like common sense that you would put it in the case before you start riding a bike, right? Ya that’s what I thought, but apparently not so I have to point it out here.
When transporting your flute whether you are riding a bike, riding in a car, walking on the cement, walking down the stairs, up and down stairs, going anywhere besides your practice room or your performance area it needs to be put in it’s case. Okay.
Now second of all, I visit lots of flute players around the world and I just love it and I get a chance to kind of examine their flutes a little bit. When I see a flute that is completely the wrong color, like brown or greenish-blue inside, then I know the flute is years old and has not been put away for that long and it will be difficult for me to teach them how to play really well because we are going to struggle with our tone because of the condition of the flute.
So green or brown inside is, or green or blue I should say, first of all it could be just the color of the nickel as the nickel has tarnished, kind of like a penny when you throw it in a fountain of water and over time it turns color, right? That could be the same thing happening to the flute, depending on the quality of the flute to start with.
Second of all that greenish-blue could actually be mold and many times it has been on students that I have talked to. I have a friend who didn’t play her flute for about 15 years and when she opened the case one day to play again it was covered in blue-green fuzziness. Crazy, huh? That just means it was put away without being clean. Obviously had some mold to start with and it just kept growing.
So, always clean your flute before you put it away too. Right? We are going to have to wipe the lotions from our fingers, little fingerprints and stuff- we need to wipe that off being very careful of the mechanisms.
Wow, I could talk about this for a long time. In fact, there are more tips and tricks and things to help you take care of your flute right here at LearnFluteOnline.com. We have a bonus page that gives you more information.
I have a podcast, I have articles, and of course I have the membership area where I go through every video tutorial with you in the right order of what you need to learn how to play well.
So that being said, let’s end this video and I will watch the questions. We are going to be discussing even more things about how to choose a flute and the education that you need to be really knowledgeable and make this a happy, easy, fun thing for you. We’ll see you then!
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