In a session recently, there were several whistlers who, as we all do, spent much time blowing hard through the fipple with a finger over the windway to clear the spit and warm up the instrument.
One bright spark asked if there was an official term for this action - I doubt it but it got me thinking!
I’ll bet there is a huge boiling cauldron of wit out there who can come up with a suitably descriptive word for this and who knows, it might end up in the next edition of the New Oxford.
“Clearing your note”
“Blowing your notes”
It sounds like I’ve got a bad cold when I say those!
“Spitectomy”
“Fipple-clearing”
Or, in honor of JetBoy, “Jet dry.”
If you’d rather to give it a foreign flair, these are all invented (fake) phrases:
“Decrachat” or “decratcher” (French noun and verb for “de-spit”)
“Souffler a la vie” (French for “blow to life”)
“Moucher le sifflet” (French “blow the whistle” in the way one blows mucus from the nose)
“Sonarse el esputo” (Spanish for “to blow/sound the spit”)
“Sonar abierto” (Spanish for “to blow open”)
I like “decrachat” (noun) and “decratcher” (verb) best.
Thanks. I hope it’s bad German; that was the idea. If it’s not, oh well. I tried.
But that term is for the practice as described. When declogging, I do it the opposite way, like taking a sip. I can do that mid-tune and no one will notice. That one gets called Umgekehrtschlammsaugen.
Ausschleimblasen oder
Umgekehrtschleimsaugen would be even worse …
I always call it
“towarmupputfingeroverventandblowhardafewtimesneverforgetthefingeroverventthough” but that is too long a word eh… maybe " twupf" works
Brigitte
Yer either not doin it right, or too well.
…
works