LFP 015 | Where to Store Your Flute Cleaning Cloth

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LFP 015 | Where to Store Your Flute Cleaning Cloth

Learn Flute Podcast SHOW NOTES:

In this episode, you will learn how to keep your flute looking brand new by cleaning it properly.

This is the Learn Flute Podcast Episode 015.

Excited!

You’ll learn:

What this podcast will be all about

  • Information on this podcast is supplemental to LearnFluteOnline.com
  • How to keep your flute in tip top shape
  • The best way to clean your flute
  • Where you can find hundreds of mini flute courses
  • What you can look forward to learning from listening

Learn Flute Podcast 015

Press the Play Button to Listen Now:

This is Rebecca with the Learn Flute Podcast – episode 15 – yay!

Learning to play the flute will put you in a good mood for the rest of the day. Because the flute is the most cool, the most fun, and the most beautiful of all the instruments in the whole world. We are  here to tell you, you can do it! And Rebecca will show you how, step by step all along the way. She’s a curly headed blonde with a talent for teaching. Introducing the Learn Flute Podcast

Take it away Rebecca!

Hi, and welcome to the Learn Flute Podcast where today we’ll be exploring yet another exciting subject that goes perfectly along with your flute learning. In case you haven’t heard me mention it, I wanted to let you know that there are literally hundreds of video tutorials on the learnfluteonline.com website just waiting for you to come join. There’s just one Gold or Intermediate membership you need, and you can have it all.

With that being said, let’s get onto the subject for today which is: “How and where to store your flute cleaning cloth, and why does it really matter”.

I had an email sent in yesterday to me from a nice guy named William. He says, “After using the cleaning rod and cloth to swab the inside of the flute, should that damp cloth be placed back in the case? That seems somewhat counterproductive to me!”

Well guess what William, you’re exactly right! That cleaning cloth gets all slobbery and wet after a good practice session, and it shouldn’t sleep all night inside your flute case with your flute.

Now the reason it matters so much all has to do with your pads. They’re usually white, occasionally yellow or red and sit underneath the keys that you are pressing on. They basically are the reason you can make any nice sounds at all because the pads are responsible for sealing off those holes from allowing any air to seep through. 

I’m not actually sure if all pads are made of the same materials, but whatever it is, it seems to be pretty temperamental because if there’s a puff, crack, rip or dent in any of them your tone will be in for a world of hurt.

These flute pads are ultra sensitive, and any extra moisture in your case is going to get absorbed quickly into them. And, because it’s sitting in a closed case all night, the moisture just stays there. This is one of the reasons we run our cleaning cloth through our flute after we practice, right? It’s to get all of the moisture out. So why would we want to put the cloth back in the case all night? Its definitely a backwards thought.

When we blow into our flute our warm air from our body meets the cool air inside the metal flute. And if you know anything about science you’ll remember that when warm air meets cold air, it basically makes rain, right?

The last thing we want is to let the rain sit on your pads all night.

After time, all this extra wetness is going to inflate and kind of puff the pads. And, once you have puffy pads you can basically say bye bye to your beautiful tone. It’s a no-win situation.

I’ve noticed flutes in younger students especially who haven’t been taught to clean their flute after playing it – their first pad or two on their flute will be the ones that have all the puffiness and cracking. This is because the most ‘water droplets’ (if we can use that word) are up towards the top of the body of the flute from being played for a few minutes. 

And because we play with our flutes held laterally, horizontally – these band students then place their flutes on their laps horizontally as well.. and sometimes don’t pay attention to the fact that their flute has tipped a bit and the spit drops are now running out of the first holes possible — and you guessed it, right onto the pads. It’s a real problem, folks.

So, let’s get back to the idea that we need to run a cleaning cloth through our flute barrel before putting it away. The reason is to capture as much moisture and spit droplets as possible and to keep it from staying all night in the flute barrel and getting absorbed into the pads.

Now I’m going to instruct you to take that same spitty cloth and just simply tie it to the handle on your flute case where it can air out for the rest of the day. Or, if you are at home all the time, you can just lay it over your case for the night where it’ll dry off by itself.

If you have a flute case with a zipper pocket, you can put it there- just realize that it may stay wet for a while. Wet clothes get kind of grody after a while and should be washed. Just wash your cloth by hand in the sink and let it air dry instead of tossing it in with the bath towels or your  other laundry. We especially don’t want to put that cloth into the dryer to reinvent itself with all of the lint in there. 

If you spaced out for the last paragraph, you might want to hit the back button and listen to that again because it’s pretty important – especially for your germ-a-phobes and careful flute players who want to keep their instrument in pristine condition. .. like I hope you all do. A clean flute is a happy flute, and happy flutes sound really good!

I’d like to end off today’s episode with another awesome testimonial from one of you students of mine. I get a kick out of reading your questions and comments and I love to answer all of them.

Anyway, this particular comment comes from my youtube channel today where this young lady says, “Thank you so much with about seven exclamation marks. I’m in highschool, and I was having trouble in class with the flute. I was actually thinking about switching classes. Thanks a lot for these video tutorials. And then she ends with several more exclamation marks.

Well, you are very welcome, and I hope you come back every week for even more learning. Now on the Youtube channel there are a few tastes and snippets of some of the videos, mostly on the beginner level. If your interested in the higher level or even moving on past the beginner level, you will want to come over to LearnFluteOnline.com website and get yourself a membership where you can just go step by step, by step, by step. All the way through learning how to play the flute really really well. 

I’m actually in the process of mapping out a really great mini-course that will help band students quite a bit. If your are a band student listening right now In fact, it may be a game-changer for most students who take the course.

Speaking of mini-courses I don’t think I’ve mentioned here that I have mini-courses in some really fun areas such as Learning how to play with the correct style for church hymns, I have an Irish Music course that I launch every March – don’t think I need to even say how much catchy-fun that one is. I have a super vibrato course for those who are getting on an even higher level, and a note reading course for those who just want that skill isolated into it’s own learning section.

I’m putting out more and more content each week and month for you, so don’t forget to come over to the website and join in on the conversation we’re having in each learning module as well as the article section. You actually have to have a premium membership to go past the first 5 learning modules, but after that – man the sky is the limit, I think I saw I had over 800 videos on there as of last week, and it’s only climbing higher all the time.

There’s lots to learn so stick around!

And, of course ask me any question you may have about learning to play the flute. I’m pretty sure I can answer it for you. And, if you’d like to have your question aired just head on over to learnfluteonline.com/feedback and you can vocally ask it to me there.
This is episode 15, and we’re just getting started. So if have a question about drippy, dirty flutes or puffy cracked pads? Ask or comment on this subject over at learnfluteonline.com/015 that’s for episode fifteen or look for it on the bonus page in the menu bar. We are all just as interested as you are!

 

Thank you for Tuning In!

Please consider subscribing and taking a minute to leave a review and rating for the podcast on iTunes.

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning all about the flute and including how to take care of it by knowing where to store your flute cleaning cloth. Join us for the next episode.

Have any questions? Comment below and I will help you out.

Rebecca FullerRebecca Fuller
Get Flutie with us! Learn and enjoy every musical minute.

2 thoughts on “LFP 015 | Where to Store Your Flute Cleaning Cloth”

  1. This information is very useful. Thank you! As I get to play the flute more, I also feel the need more to understand the mechanism, as well as to take care of it 🙂
    And also excited about a flute class for band students you are considering now 🙂

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