Can cleaning make a difference?

Irish Flute
1

I just got my Tipple Flute about three weeks ago, and I am a total beginner. As you can imagine, for the last few weeks my ability to get a consistent tone out of the thing has been spotty (with the wedge in or out). Yesterday, when I picked up the flute, I noticed it smelled a bit yucky and so I took it the sink and gave it a good washing. When I put it back together, I was immediately able to get a good tone out of it, and every time I picked it up yesterday I got a great tone. Thinking it might just be a good tone/embouchure day, I picked it up this morning and immediately got a good tone–it was so strong I could feel the flute vibrating.

So my question to you more advanced players is: Could the washing really make such a difference? Or is it pure coincidence that I’m getting a good tone now? I really hope it is the former, since I really like this “getting a good tone” thing.

2

Congratulations on both the Tipple and your emerging good tone. My guess is that it’s coincidental. It takes some time, experimenting and most of all exercise to get a good embouchure, and it’s something you’ll be working on for the rest of your playing life.
It sounds to me like you just got over the top of the first hill. That’ll make playing a lot more fun from now on. Enjoy! :party:

3

I’m constantly swabbing out my Tipple with the included cleaning rod (like after every 20 minutes of playing or so). The tone degrades, of course, as the flute fills with condensation. If you swab it out properly every time there won’t ever be any smell in my experience.

4

Also, you should always rinse your mouth with water before you play.

The moisture in your flute is from water vapor in your breath condensing on the surface of the bore…in other words, it’s distilled water.

Want proof? Play for a while, take the headjoint off, and hold the body of the flute up to the light. See how the moisture collects pretty evenly, all the way around?

If it were spit (as is sometimes theorized), it would “pool” into a steady trickle in the bottom of the bore, and the rest of the bore would be dry.

So…by itself, distilled water isn’t going to make your flute smell. Now, that’s not to say it’s good to leave it there. On a wooden flute, leaving the bore wet is just asking for a crack. A plastic flute won’t crack, but over time standing water does tend to become stagnant…and you don’t want a stagnant flute. :astonished:

And if you have just eaten, particles of chewed food can be blown by accident into the flute…and that WILL make the flute smell horrible. So rinse your mouth before you play, and you won’t have your flute become a “flavor saver.” :laughing:

It’s good to swab out the flute after playing (if a wooden flute), or, for a polymer (plastic) flute, either swab it like a wooden one, or just from time to time rinse out the pieces under your sink to wash anything out that shouldn’t be there.

Finally, yes, grunge in the bore or especially in the embouchure hole will impact the tone and response of the flute. So if anything had accumulated, washing it away would certainly make the flute seem to suddenly play better.

–James

5

I’m not too familiar with Tipple flutes. I know they are made of pvc but the head joint stopper must be made of something else. Like cork maybe? What ever the material, it’s possible that when you rinsed it out you made the stopper, or perhaps joint lapping swell, thus making the flute more air tight. It’s amazing what a difference a fixed air leakage can make for the tone of a flute especially the lower notes, however small a leak it may be.

6

Tht could very well be it. The stopper on Tipples are made of cork. A fun experiment would be to wet the stopper and play for a set time every day. Then tell us if the sound eventually degrades. After a week or so, wet it again and see if it helps.

7

I’m not sure if this applies to wooden or plastic flute, but with my silver-plated nickel Boehm flute (Gemeinhardt 2SP), after I play for a while it often feels “clogged” with spit, almost like a whistle, and has difficulty sounding, especially low notes. If I swab or blow it out (cover the mouthpiece compltely with my mouth, close all the holes, and blow), the problem usually subsides.