Help! It's alive and living in my flute!

Irish Flute
21

You never really use the keys, do you? They’re just for decoration, I thought… and Doc, you’re right, I absolutely hold you responsible for my descent down the slippery slope leading to social ostracism and financial ruin. I expect you to treat my dog for free. :wink:

I hope the flute can last without oil for a while. There’s none to be had in town, so I’m waiting for the next time a friend comes from Fairbanks or Anchorage. I suppose it’ll be all right, since it’s lasted four or five years without.

Just don’t tell me not to play it until then! I have a Lot of Practicing to do before I can get to the point of playing without gasping for air.

Jennie

22

Well it didn’t last very well for 4 to 5 years without unless your original complaint was intended as a joke !

23

Point taken. Probably, assuming it was oiled before, that’s what protected it from the green slime monster. So I do plan to oil it. Just not with what I could find here in town.

Once I have some almond or mineral oil on hand, I’ll take out the cork and clean the whole thing again. And once I get brave enough, I’ll rewrap both cork and tenons to get rid of any possible traces of non-indigenous species.

Gee, I’m beginning to appreciate the fascination of some people (say, pipers) for all the idiosyncracies of their instruments. I never got to know a tuba this well, that’s for sure.

Jennie

24

There are other oils that you can use too until you get what you want:

Sweet amond or olive, raw linseed, walnut, and as mentioned before, bore oil.

You can get them (assuming your town has one) at a health food store, a pharmacy, the hardware store (raw linseed), supermarket or music store(bore oil).

Here’s the link to the Chiff post on oil (there were more than this one too):

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=25168&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=walnut+oil&start=0

25

It’s the least I could do. Just make sure you put some holes in the box when you mail him down. :slight_smile:

Doc

26

That’s assuming that whatever was in there wasn’t living on the oil. It was either that or wood cellulos or perhaps a dinner remnant from the last person that played the flute.

27

Eeew, that’s gross.

You know, this topic didn’t bother me when I posted it. But now I’m seriously considering soaking the whole thing in alcohol (just kidding!).

Truly, though, if you watch people with whistles and flutes during sessions, they seem to freely trade off. No big deal. It’s common courtesy to wipe the current layer of spit from the part you’ve just touched with your lips, usually with the sleeve you’ve just used to wipe your nose…

But I just spent an afternoon recently with two fiddlers. One of them didn’t have his instrument with him, and the other one offered to let him try his fiddle. He responded with a visible shudder and, “No, I wouldn’t be comfortable with yours. That would be like using someone else’s toothbrush!”

Though I guess I wouldn’t play someone else’s nose flute. Not immediately, at least. :wink:

Jennie

28

Does not out Italian friend illuminate his posts with an illustration of the green stuff he got out of his flute ?
Surely, if the postal services operate in the wilderness of which you seem to be a denizen, you could order a bottle of almond or camellia oil through the post or over the internet ?

29

Now that IS gross, Andrew. As my youngest would say, “Totally. That is like, Sooo gross.”

So I have some oil coming from up the road. I avoid the Internet for buying and selling… except for here, where I sort of know people. I try to go local when I can, or do without. (Except for flutes and whistles.)

My swab still comes out a little bit off color in the headjoint, even after playing and swabbing every day. I’m not a tobacco chewer, either. I’m looking forward to seeing the juices run clear, so to speak.

Jennie

30

Umm, did this alien lifeform appear to be mold, like the fuzzy stuff on bread, or did it appear to be lichenoid, like those little flat gray to greenish circles growing on wood and rocks, or was it, in fact, mossy? You mentioned that it looked like the stuff around your trees, but now I’m really curious.

Have you looked in there with a flashlight? Perhaps there is some of it left?

Did you take a photograph? I, personally, would love to see it.

Was it one of these?
http://www.lichen.com/vocabulary.html

Or, was it like the background moss in this picture? The “fingers” sticking up are the lichens–they’re in the moss.

31

Now I wish I’d saved it. It was more mossy than licheny. I’d say closer to the club moss behind the lichens in the last photo. But much smaller, like what I used to call fairy pillow moss.

It was not like what I imagined was coming out of the nose of one notorious poster. That’s the wrong green.

Sorry, Peggy, I’m not going to give it enough of a chance to reestablish itself as our flute forum science fair project. If it persists, I’ll send it to Casey. But I’d hate to have to do that. Then I’d be forced to buy an interim flute, and you know where that could lead!

Jennie

32

Ooooh, a moss. How interesting! Can you maybe look around on a moss website and see if you can find a picture? :slight_smile:

How big was it, anyway? Pinhead? Jelly bean? Ritz cracker?


:sniffle:

I was thinking you could transplant it onto a nice scrap of wood. Maybe Casey could send you a blackwood scrap.

Personally, I would enjoy such a thing. Give it a little terrarium of its own . . .


You don’t already have an interim flute? But you need one. What are you going to play on the days your blackwood is being oiled???

Seriously, did you peek inside to see if The Entity had dissolved a hole in the wood?

33

No holes. No sawdust. But there seems to be a persistence of brownish color on my swab in the first swipe.

And to answer the rest: half a jelly bean, maybe. I am not Anti-Science! I am very fond of my eyebrow mites, for example. And I eat cheese with mold. Just tell this particular fuzziness to go inhabit some other ecosystem. :wink:

And nobody told me not to play a flute that’s been oiled… tell me I don’t have to wait a whole day!

Jennie

34

Mmmmhmmm, undoubtedly dissolved flute nutrients . . .

Well, yes, I can understand why you wouldn’t want it in your flute . . . kind of . . . but surely you could have saved it? Weren’t you even curious to know what it was? I wouldn’t have been able to rest until I’d keyed it out . . . cranked up the old microscope . . . found it a new home in a lovely glass jar . . .

It might have been an endangered species, you know.

And now it’s GONE! <sob!>

Nobody mentioned this? Seriously?

First, your flute needs to be dry when you oil it. Not dripping right after playing it. Otherwise, the oil doesn’t coat the wood nicely. Then, you have to let the oil soak in a bit. Before you flood it again.

Now, I know some drag an oily rag thru after every blow, but if the point to oiling is to seal the wood . . . well, you have to take more care.

I can tell you, flutes love a nice oil massage, and you just can’t rush that sort of thing.

And what are you going to do when you need to play in the bath? Or out in the rain? Or at the Boy Scout Jamboree?

What about when you’re waiting for web pages to load? It’s best to have a bamboo waiting right there . . .

And what are you going to do when you need a different flute to test things on? If you’re having trouble with something, you know that it often helps to try it on another flute. That way, you see if it’s you or the flute.

Yes, there are very good reasons for having multiple flutes. You need a Tipple, at least.

35

Jennie - Peggy is obviously the sole US importer of fine Pakistani made flutes…so I’d watch out for her “interim flute” theory. :stuck_out_tongue:

As for oiling, if you leave your flute case open after swabbing the flute out (after playing) for an hour or so, I think you can safely oil the flute, let it sit overnight (not in an open case), and you’re fine to play the next day.

And for your gunk…I’ve heard from an flute playing friend that he found used to get similar stuff when he over oiled his flute for a few years in the past then didn’t play for a couple of weeks. I think it’s oil related gunk.

Eric

36

Today I took Peggy’s advice. My colleague, the biology teacher, was in when I came to work on lesson plans. So I swabbed out the flute headjoint again and took a slide with some of the residue to her microscope.

Some of it was brown, and some green. Tiny flakes, at this point, is what is coming out. Although there was nothing actually moving, there were a couple of spherical and oblong forms that look a little like cell walls. Most of it looked like amber, which confirms the “oil-related gunk” theory. No definite ID’s on any of it. But my curiosity is somewhat satisfied.

Since it is so dark inside a flute inside a case, my biology colleague doesn’t think it could have been growing algae or moss. I also learned that she used to play flute in high school. Who knew?

Now that my oil has arrived, I will do the right thing and thoroughly clean and dry it before I treat it.

Jennie

37

Cell walls!!! I hope you SAVED THEM!!! They were probably reproductive lichen cells!

The last of their kind . . .

Or possibly semi-digested blackwood cells . . .


Since it is so dark inside a flute inside a case, my biology colleague doesn’t think it could have been growing algae or moss.

Maybe it wasn’t in the case the whole time? Perhaps the light was just dim?