About the breakin period for a new flute ...

Irish Flute
1

A new flute direct from the maker arguably has probably the best, most evenly applied oil protection that it will have in its life. Terry McGee has done some interesting, valuable work regarding the uptake of oil by various woods. With this in mind, I’m wondering what the purpose of the breakin period of a new flute is (10 minutes of playing the first day, 15 minutes a couple of days later, until maybe a month later you can play it for an hour or more at a clip).
Will the flute absorb more water than it does oil the first few days? Is it the vibrations in the flute that may cause it to crack unless it’s played in gradually, as I read somewhere? Or is it an old wives tale?
I’ve carefully broken in 2 boxwood baroque flutes and an ebony baroque flute, and whenever I put one aside for any extended period I break it in all over again. Because I’m supposed to.

Any thoughts?

2

From what I have read on various Flute sites is that the reason is because the wood is not used to the constant expanding and contracting and has to gradually get used to it. I have also read that it is because the wood is not fully saturated when it is new and needs to slowly absorb mousture otherwise it may crack.

3

Who says new flutes need breaking in?

Loren

4

Rod Cameron’s flute care page http://www.gruk.net/lars/rodflutecare.html gives a rough play-in schedule:
“go slowly, playing ten minutes on the first day, morning and evening, and increasing this each day in the following rough sequence:-
10, 20, 40, 60, 80 minutes, 2 hours, 2.5 hr, 3 hr, 4 hr, and 5 hr”

Folkers and Powell’s break-in advice is more restrictive:
“Do not play for more than 10 minutes per session, with a maximum of 2 sessions per day, during the first 2 weeks. After that, the limit is half an hour, once a day, for another 2 weeks. After 1 month of regular playing according to these rules, you may play the flute for up to 1 hour at a time. If you are like most people you will feel a temptation to do more than this: RESIST IT!”

I wonder if anybody has been able to hold out that long with a new flute??

5

I don’t know what’s true here. I try to take it
easy at the beginning. Seldom succeed.
Also once I’ve played a flute for a good while
and then put it away and don’t play
it for a good while, I just start playing
it again as if it is broken in.

So far, so good.

6

I think by far the safest course, once you’ve paid between roughly one and three thousand dollars or the equivalent for a fine flute, is to follow the maker’s recommendations for breaking in, care, and oiling.

A good flute is a treasure. If you mess up, you’ve lost more than just the monetary value.

–James

7

Heh heh, and who says they don’t?

That’s the problem of course - we can’t be sure. We (makers) have all seen flutes that have died (not necessarily our own), but we can’t really be sure what killed them. And we don’t have the resources to carry out the kind of testing that would be necessary to prove it one way or the other (make 200 identical flutes, and issue half to cautious people with breaking-in instructions, and half to rabid session animals). The “big guys”, like clarinet manufacturers, who make tens of thousands of instruments, seem to cling to blowing-in regimes and the use of inorganic bore oils, and we have to assume that they arrived at that position by some process (even though none of them seem prepared to talk about it!) And certainly really lax maintenance, like not mopping out, has been shown to cause problems, so the circumstantial evidence points in one direction.

Someone once suggested that a database of cracked instruments be set up, collecting data about how old the instruments were, what forms of construction were used, what kind of care taken and so on. Sounds pretty hard to do, but probably is the only way we’d ever really know.

Terry

8

Indeed Terry :wink:

Here’s my point: Yes, indeed, follow the maker’s recommendations, by all means.

That said…

I can see where Rod’s coming from, if you’re selling to a player who typically plays for multiple hours per day, but in general, the idea that a “New” flute which is coming directly from the maker, should need to be played in slowly, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

When you buy a newly made flute, what did it go through (or what should it have gone through) in the process of being made? Would it have been oiled during the process? Would it have been oiled within a few days of shipment? Wouldn’t the instrument need to be played for more than 15 minutes at a time in order to be properly tuned and voiced?

Where I worked, each instrument was played for several hours during the tuning and voicing process, more than enough to show any problems that might arise in the normal course of daily playing. With 350 or so instruments made from Boxwood, Grenadilla, Rosewood, Tulipwood, Kingwood, and a few other odds and ends, I never saw a single instrument crack during this process, nor were any returned by customers for cracks related to “overplaying”.

Again, just to be clear, I absolutely think it is imperative to follow a maker’s break-in instructions, if only to CYA with regards to the warranty, however I’m at a loss to understand how a newly and properly made flute would/could crack from a half hour to a hour of play per day to start - particularly because the instrument should have gone through more playing than that while being tuned and voiced in the shop.

I’d absolutely agree that there is a very real danger of cracking a flute that has been sitting, unhumidified, and unoiled for a long period of time, but these circumstances shouldn’t apply to new instruments.

Loren

9

With different makers sending flutes made different climes to as many equally varied (and perhaps more harsh) ones, I’m sure break-in periods described are a good, conservative way to minimize the potential for cracks.

Terry’s points on Clarinet manufacturers numbers are well-noted (there’s got to be some raw data out there ready for interpretation).

Now, what’s always puzzled me is the ‘play-in’ period that I’ve heard some makers recommend. Wherein after a certain, arbitrary-sounding period of 4-12 months, the flutes tone (or something) improves, as a direct result from proper oiling and breaking-in. This to me never made sense and certainly wasn’t consistent since other makers made no mention of it and my flute’s maker went so far as to say it’s a bogus concept altogether. His impression was that it was the player’s developed familiarity with the flute which had ‘released’ the instrument’s potential, not anything to do with the conditioning of the timber from the previous months.

Anyway, this stuff is always interesting to ruminate on!

Cheers,

  • Ryan
10

I’m inclined to agree, more or less, Ryan. In fact, I firmly believe that in most cases a flute’s bore is going to change shape and size a fair amount during the first 6-12 months of playing, and the absolute best results will be achieved by having the flute’s bore re-reamed to spec after a year or so - we did this on occasion (re-reaming of older instruments), and found the results were positive, in each and every case.

Catherine Folkers does this, as I recall, with her flutes: re-reames them to spec after a year or so. It’s surprising how much these buggers can, and do, change size and shape early in the instrument’s life.

Loren

11

The feeling that a flute gets better over the first 6 months or so is sure an interesting one. I’ve had people play the same flute (without realising it was the same flute just a year or so later) and exclaim “wow, you’re certainly making them better these days”! But as we all know bad embouchure days, setting the head at a slightly different rotation, eating or drinking something tart before hand can all alter our impression of a flute, so you can’t put too much faith in it.

I used to feel that my flutes got significantly better, but now I’m not so sure. Could just be that I’m getting better at getting them closer to their optimal condition of bore polish and edge radius. Could be my playing has changed!

It would be interesting to hear from poly flute owners as to whether they think their flutes have improved since new. We can be pretty confident that the poly isn’t going to change dimensions significantly, so any perceived change is probably due to wear on the edge, or to increasing familiarity by the player. Note there still appears to be two possibilities!

Terry

12

Terry - I’ll address the polymer question:

  1. New Dixon 3 piece conical - it got better with time (my first conical bore flute).

  2. New Seery Pratten - it also improved with age.

  3. Used M&E R&R - I’ve only had it a few months now, but it’s getting better also…

  4. Several years old used Rosewood Sweetheart flute - Also improved with time.

Notice the trend? While I’m sure wooden flutes do change, I think the biggest factor is the player adjusting to the instrument.

Eric

13

Agreed, much of it has to be the owner getting used to the instrument, and/or improving as a player.

I’m inclined to think an unusually dry instrument, or one with a gummed up bore (from too much oil) won’t sound it’s best either, so if one acquires a flute in either of these conditions (typical of how one finds many used flutes), then I can see how the sound of the flute itself could improve with some playing time.

Loren

14

I’ve not found that flutes, polymer, wood, or metal, change significantly. Fact is, I’d venture to say polymer flutes don’t change at all–which is a Good Thing if it’s a good flute, but if it starts life as a mediocre flute it won’t get better with time.

I think Seery flutes probably help give people the impression that polymer flutes change over time. Seery flutes require precise embouchure control and aren’t very forgiving if you don’t have it, so that as the player learns the flute it will sound much better–but it’s not the flute that changes.

On the other hand…

At the risk of sounding psychotic, inexpensive, plastic-fippled whistles DO chnage over time and with play. I know many people claim they don’t. People who I respect deeply claim they don’t. But they in fact do.

–James

15

This has definitely been true of my Jon C. poly Rudall - it took me a while to adjust to the embouchure. Jon warned me up front this would likely be the case, and he was right - it took me a few days before I had decent volume (or tone) at the bottom of the first octave.

Now that I’ve been playing it a while, I’ve got a much wider range of tone and volume available, but it still takes me a bit to adjust my embouchure when I switch from my Burns Folk Flute (and, to be fair, when going the other way).

Seems to me I’ve seen posts on here from folks with a lot more experience saying the same things about adapting to a new flute. And while I can easily believe that a new wooden flute might be changing, it seems a bit less likely for an already well-played-in instrument.