I’m sure this has probably come up in one form or another before, but it’s a puzzle to me. What actual physical changes happen to make a flute play in. This is especially noticable in my Doyle, from the start it had a strong edged tone, but it didn’t seem made for lullabys. But 18 months down the line it will play as quietly and as sweetly as you like.
Now you might say I’d just got more of the measure of it, but my teacher just got an identical one which I tried and when I got home and played mine I thought to myself his new flute plays just the way my one used to.
So how does this happen, the stick is still the same shape, his bore is just as polished, what can change?
Rob
From what I understand the bore will usually get fuzzy - especially if oiling is not rigorously done.
maybe the regular exposure, over time, to moisture from the breath when played regularly . this would be a growing experience to the wood, especially if it had gone thru a period of not being played as often is it currently is.
I tend to think that play-in is an overrated concept (like the oft-debated flute-material topic). The maker of my flute pulled me aside and said he doesn’t think play-in is anything more than the player becoming more familiar with his instrument in very subtle, intimate ways after the much-debated 6-12 month period (my experience has bore this out). A maker willl recommend regular oiling as a preventative measure for cracking (whose effectivenes is debated even more 
), but the sound does not improve because of this. A freshly sealed bore does
change in sound, but ‘improve’ is a matter of opinion.
Now, ‘break-in’ is another matter. Introducing moisture-laden breath to a brand-new instrument should be done in a gradualy increasing way (i.e. not playing it at a 4-hour session the day it’s delivered) and I don’t think anyone argues the point of proper humidification - but for warping/cracking prevention, not the instrument sounding better over time.
It’d be good to hear from some of the makers here. Terry’s experiments on blackwood headjoints going into the freezer then microwave indicate that its more the quality and seasoning of the timber that prevents cracking as opposed to oiling.
Cheers,
- Ryan
I am also a fiddler, guitarist and mandonist (is that a word?)
Anyway, the above mentioned intruments really do change with time and, more importantly, with playing. I’ve heard experienced master violin makers say things like “that will be a great violin when it’s had a few hundred hours of playing”.
Now I’ll grant that stringed instruments are vastly more complex in their components and construction than our beloved sticks with holes in them, but who’s to say that after vibrating a a given frequency a few thousand times that the old stick doesn’t get “better” at it?
Doc
When Chris Wilkes told me that my flute would improve over time I took it with a pinch of salt, thinking much as above… but having two flutes that I feel have very much improved I’m not so sure. I do oil them once a week without fail, which could, if there is really a change, be the cause, or I did wonder if the repeated cycle of drying and wetting could have some effect on the wood itself.
Wonder if the same would be true of a Boehm flute, or a delrin flute?
And, if you hold to the theory that it’s the headjoint makes the tone of the flute and not the body, and you have a fully-lined hj, what changes could there be to affect ‘playability’ after 18 months? (See the whole ‘concrete flute’ debate).
I think on balance I’m leaning towards the ‘improved relationship’ theory, that after 12 or 18 months a player can instinctively make the physical changes necessary to achieve a certain dynamic on his or her flute, which in the early days would’ve required conscious effort and experimentation.
Here are my observations on three flutes (only 2 of which I own now):
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My Rosewood Sweetheart sounds better the more I play it and keep it oiled regularly. When I slack off on playing it, it takes a week of good playing to get it sounding better again…which leads me to believe it’s a moisture issue (I don’t keep the flute humidified - just stored with the cleaning rag which keeps up humidity fine if I play daily).
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My delrin flute has greatly improved over the two years I’ve owned it…it sounds so much better it’s almost like I’ve improved instead of the flute.
Seriously, though, how could delrin change from playing (this stuff will likely be unchanged 300 years from now), yet I’ve experienced a similar improvement over time as many players report with their wooden flutes. -
I used to own an antique german flute which had not been played for years. It took several months of regular oiling and playing and then the flute suddenly came alive. No open cracks…I think the flute needed to be rehumidified back into playing shape.
So, I think the biggest factor is improvment in the player, but I do think flutes improve with constant playing and that it’s likely the fact that we humidify via breath our flutes and also likely the increased oiling helps, too.
Eric
I think that all flutes could possibly change over time, whether lined or not, wood or delrin.
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Slides. Metal corrodes, tarnishes, and changes with moisture. Whther this would have an effect on an Irish flute is an open question.
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tone holes. The more you play them, the smoother they (the edges, specifically) get. This is true of any material.
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Embouchure edges will change over time - plastic or wood. The question is whether the degree of change has a bearing on the sound.
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Gunk. It accumulates in flutes, and changes the inner surface characteristics in small ways. I’d imagine this to be true whether one swabs on a regular basis or not (for us Delrin players)
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All points above are conjecture!
But clearly a huge variable is the player and her comfort level with the flute.
All points above are conjecture!
Maybe those points are just conjecture…but they’re good points!
Oh, and you do wash that polymer flute of yours, right? Please say yes for the sake of those down wind of you…
Eric
Yeah, I’m still not sure on that one, Doc. Only reason being that if you look at a 200 year-old violin, it’s sound sweetens over time (and value increases dramatically) and is highly sought-after by professional muscians who practice ungodly hours per week (i.e. the instrument continues to see heavy-use) while you’re lucky to even find a flute that old, and it usually is under glass in a museum somewhere for fear of damage through playing.
Makers have also commented on flute’s getting ‘played-out’, basically meaning that decades of warm, moist breath on the embouchure erodes the crisp, precisely-sculpted edges that once made the flute so responsive and expressive. I think the nice examples of original instruments we see were not subject to daily playing over their lives, and thus still have ‘alot of miles left’, while the one’s that were played everday have disintigrated. Maybe Dave Migoya could wiegh-in here as well since he’s had more experience with older flutes than perhaps any of us.
This does, however raise another question I’ve pondered. I always have something to sip on whilst playing/practicing. Wether it’s a pint at a session, some coffee in the morning, or even some whisky. I wonder about the increased damage that could be caused by the acids and phenols on the breath? Obviously, a few pints of Guiness have flowed through flutes on the breath of experienced players just fine, but I wonder nonetheless.
Cheers,
- Ryan
I hope you all can stand yet another post about oboes … 
Hopefully there are some similarities… ???
Oboes do play out, and they do so more quickly if not cared for. I have seen the bore of a played out oboe that was well cared for (it was about 20 years old, but had seen a lot of use, since it belonged to a professional player). It was rough and pitted. A played out oboe loses its rich tone; the tone becomes thin and bright, and the pitch may rise, especially in the 2nd octave.
The oboists I know are careful about practicing good hygeine before playing. And from teaching middle school students, I have seen what happens if you don’t. The sugar on your breath leaves a residue that can build up after months and years of playing. I have had middle school students come to me with instruments whose keys were stuck to the instrument. yuck. 
I agree with the last posting: I ALWAYS brush my teeth before playing either my Irish flutes or my Boehm. Ever since my high school band director remarked that the whole band room smelled like potato chips after we’d all been to lunch!
Seriously, I believe sugar or any other substance that’s in your saliva will damage your flute over time.
Jeanie (the neat freak)
Are Oboes swabbed out after every use like us flute-players are supposed too? Just curious as I know nothing about them.
Yep. We are kind of anal too (I think it comes from having to make all of those reeds), so we are constantly swabbing them out during rehearsals and performances, too.
We are kind of anal too (I think it comes from having to make all of those reeds)
Shannon - I’m a little concerned about how you’re making those reeds… 
Seriously though, I lost the link when I changed computers, but there was some guy out in Colorado (I think) who restored old and blown out oboes and clarinets by soaking the instrument in oils. I seem to recall he had several professional players supporting as clients who had their instruments “rehabed” through this process.
Eric
This has little to do with flutes or oboes, fluti-Pi, but what’s the significance of your avatar? I’ve been puzzling over it, and I fear it’s something so obvious that I’ll just hang my head in shame, but . . .
I can’t even tell what the right-hand object is. I showed it to a couple of colleagues, and the guesses were wild: a human heart? a coin purse? a hobo’s bag? a smoking pipe wrapped in swaddling clothes? For the love of Wisely, what does it all mean?
(On topic: I’ll have to admit to not always swabbing my flute out well. Sometimes I just give it a thorough shaking out and put it away. I’ve known some top-notch players who do the same, but maybe they just have more flutes laying around than I do and so are less careful than I ought to be.)
Since there are so many antique flutes that are still good, it seems (although don’t take my advice on this) that flutes might take a heck of a lot more to blow out than oboes. But what do I know? I guess by comparing the two instruments, we can maybe figure out what the real story behind blowing in/out a woodwind instrument might be.
(The right hand object is a human heart, and the whole thing is supposed to be like some kind of strange, twisted Cupid).
Yeah, I have heard of people doing that. It doesn’t always work, of course, just like for an old car – after a while, it’s time to just give it up and get another one.
I would think that all of this stuff would also apply to flutes, though, and so I’d like to know if anyone knows of the same kinds of processes used on flutes. The one difference between the two instruments is that the oboe is MUCH more conical than a flute, and so there is a lot of pressure and fast moving air up near the top of the oboe. But in a flute, the embouchure and the far end are both low pressure nodes, right? (I think I am getting in over my head here). So I wonder if the pressure has something to do with it…?? 
I guess that what I’m trying to say is that lnowing the similarities and differences between the two instruments might shed some light on the process of blowing in/out in general. But who knows?
LOL about the reeds. No wonder I am always so ill tempered when it is time to make them!
Shannon - I’m trying to picture the wall thickness of an oboe (or a wood clarinet for that matter)…it’s been too many years since my sister made an oboe sound like a tortured cat for a year. (I do love oboe…but a new oboe player is a scary person).
Maybe wall thickness plus the vibration caused by reeds causes some of the problem?
Eric