Should wooden woodwinds be "break up" in the first 6 weeks a

Whistle
1

for example, like recorder:

1st week: play 10 min/day
2nd week: play 20 min/day
3rd week: play 30 min/day
…
6th week: play 60 min/day

Afterwards, you can play as long as you wish.

Should all wooden woodwinds be treated like that?

2

No. It depends on the instrument.
Abell whistles, which are made
of blackwood and are very fine,
don’t need a break in period.

3

[ This Message was edited by: scissors on 2002-08-24 09:04 ]

4

I know they always say that about recorders.

I’d assume you should treat the following makes of wooden whistle as if they were recorders, as they have recorder-type construction:

Sweetheart
Weltmeister (Adler-Heinrich)

5

It may not be completely necessary to break in a wooden whistle slowly, but I always recommend it to my customers and I think it’s a simple enough thing to do and may very well prevent cracks in the wood.
The exotic woods that instrument makers use are ( or should be) VERY well cured and have very little moisture content at the time the instrument is made. Wood is a natural, dynamic material which absorbs and loses moisture, expanding and shrinking in the process. Think of a kitchen sponge as a rough analogy. It takes a bit of time for the condensed breath moisture on the inside of a new whistle/recorder/oboe/etc to penetrate the full thickness of the instrument wall. As a result, the inside of the bore expands at a faster rate than the outside, and the resulting tension can cause cracking. Loren posted an excellent, exhaustive article on this subject on this board.
Oiling the whistle slows the moisture absorbtion to a great degree, but does not stop it entirely. ALWAYS drying the whistle’s bore after playing is very important too. Lately, I have been treating the bores of my whistles with a more permanent sealant with very nice results. Still, I think it can’t hurt to break in a whistle slowly. Heck, anyone who is willing to pay the price for a high end wooden whistle probably has a pretty serious WHOA affliction and has other whistles they can play during this somewhat frustrating break in period!