Parts and Pieces You Need to Play the Flute
Did your flute come with everything needed?
Video Transcript:
Well, hi and welcome back here again to another video inside this series of how to choose a flute and all of the things that you need to know to be successful and confident when getting your own flute- whether it’s borrowed, bought, rented, gifted, found, whatever it takes, right? Well, in this video, I’m going to just give you a quick view of what should actually come with your flute.
Now, first thing obviously – well I think it’s obvious anyway – should be that you should have a case that comes with the flute. Flutes are not very transportable without the flute case.
Yeah, it’s a problem. So, they are very breakable-very, very, very, fragile and they need a case. Now some flutes have an outer case with a zipper and then there will be an inner hard case on the inside. Or it’s all just one hard case, to start with. So, whatever it is, just make sure that your flute has a case. And the next thing I have to tell you is that your flute should fit well in the case. It should fit pretty snug so that when you’re transporting your flute from here to there, that it doesn’t jostle around and jiggle inside.
That little jiggling can actually undo all of that fancy mechanism that some, hopefully some flute maker has spent a lot of time making just perfect so that your flute will play well for you. And so, important with the case. Usually the cases are a little bit fuzzy and so I know that many technicians will take a little vacuum and they’ll vacuum out the case to get all the dust and the little fuzzy fibers out of there. It’s a good idea if you vacuum your case once in awhile.
Probably something you never thought of! I know there are so many things we can probably talk for years and years about every little subject. It takes to the ins and outs of flute playing. It’s kind of fun!
Here at Learn Flute Online, in the video membership areas where I have the video lessons and the pdf sheet musics, and the audios, and the downloads, and the mp3s, and all of the lesson videos I have, I teach you even more. So don’t worry, hopefully you’re able to join the membership and learn even more. But in this video series, I wanted to make sure that you all were able to start with the proper and good flute to start with to get you going.
Okay, so we talked about a case. Now the next thing we’ll talk about is the actual flute. There should be three pieces to your flute. Seems really obvious I know. But, one is the foot joint, two is the body, and then three would be the head joint. There should be three complete separate pieces to your flute.
So, I know that may seem like common sense, but I have seen people come with the flute that somebody found for them and they ask me if it’s a good one and I look and it’s missing the foot joint. I have to say, “Sorry but you’re flute is not complete, you can probably only play four or five notes on it and then you’ll be stuck”. So, anyway let’s just make sure that there are three pieces.
Now, there are other, a couple of things also. The first thing is that in the flute case, you’ll want to find that rod. Now let me grab a rod for you so you know what i’m talking about. Inside this case right here, is a… we can call it a tuning rod, or a cleaning rod. Either way it’s the same thing, it’s just used for two different purposes. Cleaning and tuning both.
So, that’s something that should be with your flute. Some of the new cases don’t actually have like a little slot to put them in, and so you put them in the zipper part of the outside. It just depends on the case.
Now, sometimes you’ll see metal rods, and the newer ones are wooden. Now, the metal rods are, I don’t like them so much, it’s how all the older flutes were made with the metal rod inside the case or with the flute. I don’t like them because the scratch the flute. The metal scratches the metal and it’s bad for the flute. But, somebody got smart one day and started making them out of wood. Just kind of some nice wood, and they tend to scratch your flute much less when you’re using it to clean.
So there’s some food for thought there.
Again, I could talk about all of these things in quite detail for a long time. But, those are the things that should come with your flute.
Now, optional, if you buy a new flute you may get a cleaning cloth with it. If your flute is rented or purchased from someone other than a store, usually there will be no cloth with it and you’ll need to get your own.
That is something else that is more important that you think. Don’t use a T-shirt. If you don’t have anything find some silk or order the proper thing.
Anyway, you can go to my favorite things page called my favorite things. I’ll put the link here for you and you can see which ones I recommend that you can get. I’ll just get you some, there’s some Amazon links there for you so you can order the right thing to help your flute stay in great shape.
Okay, that’s enough for this video. Let’s keep going, see you in the next one.
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