I’m playing a lot more whistle these days and may be playing some gigs on whistle instead flute since I have this bad respiratory lung cold nastiness that won’t go away.
Anyways, what’s a good way to swab out the fipple on these things? I’m worried that my whistle will get seriously plugged after hours of playing. I shake it out frequently, cover the whistle spout and blow through as I’ve seen other whistlers do. What else should I/can I do? My whistle of choice right now is a Jerry Freeman tweaked Clark Sweetone. I’m wondering if shoving a swab in the fipple might undo the tweakery in the Clark.
I use a strip of paper about the width of the windway and run it through after blowing/shaking out the whistle. What seems to be of ideal stiffness are the narrow strips that are torn off the sides of junk mail and checks that come through the mail. (Of course, the trick is to get someone to send you a check…)
Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone worry about swabbing something like a Sweetone. You plays it, you shakes it out, you puts it aside to dry. It’s not like it’s a, y’know, a flute or something …
By fipple you mean the head, or just the windway? I wouldn’t be taking a Sweetone head on and off all the time. Just leave it be. It’s hard to get a swab stick into the tiny bell end anyway, so I don’t.
For gunk in the windway, I’ll put the head (still attached) under running water occasionally and blow it out after. Or even take a mouthful of water and blow it through. For stubborn gunk I use the blunt end of a paper matchstick as a windway brush.
A full cleaning - head off, clean out the head, swab the bore, maybe run a piece of Scotch-Brite through it - is rare, maybe once a year or so. With a tweaked whistle, just be careful not to damage the blade/labium or disturb the putty fill (the latter can always be repacked).
Take care of yourself, Akiba. If it’s the same California flu/respiratory crud that was going around here, it’s very dangerous stuff. It took me around 12 weeks to get rid of it, with difficulty, and it killed a friend of ours.
I found a couple of rods and swabs with my recorders so I use them to swab out my whistles every time I play. I’ve played clarinet for many years and old habits die hard. I disassemble the whistles every three or four months or so and wash them out with soap and water. And occasionally I ream out the windways with dental floss. I know from cleaning my clarinet and sax mouthpieces that crud can build up and can be hard to remove once it gets dried on. So I’m pretty conscientious (or anal retentive pardon the expression) about keeping my whistles clean.
Some music supply houses sell Bassoon bocal (sp?) cleaners. That’s the curvy bit up top, the bocal cleaners are very heavy duty pipe cleaners, which also work pretty well by the way.
Got’s to be very careful with pipe cleaners. That core wire can do great damage to the splitting edge of the fipple, especially plastic ones. All it takes is a little nick and the tone can go all kerfloozle. I’d avoid 'em.
Yes, avoid pipe cleaners. Cut a strip of file card the width of the windway and run it through a couple of times. And even then I’d be careful to not bump into the blade.