This is probably a bizarre question, but here goes anyway!
What exactly goes on during the warm up period of a wooden flute? My wooden flute (rosewood oldie) takes longer to warm up than my delrin Seery.
It plays fine at first for a tune or two, then goes through a stage for about 15-20 minutes where it clogs up constantly with spit, but then after a good shake of the headjoint it’s fine nearly forever (as long as I periodically blow out the spit). I can do what I want to try and clear the flute at first, but the condensation seems to come back much faster at first than later on.
Is this caused by the metal and wood simply taking a while to warm up? And then, once warm, the level of condensation decreases?
Yeah, the reason your breath condenses (it’s not actually spit, but rather the water vapor in your breath) is because the headjoint is below the dew point for the temperature of the air you exhale.
The calculation of the dew point is actually rather complicated, but to oversimplify . . . if we assume that the humidity of your breath is 100% (RH), and your breath is about body temp, say 98°F (or 37°C), the dew point for your breath is about 90°F (32ish°C). So, your flute has to warm up above 90°F before the condensation will stop forming.
It is, of course, a little more complicated than this. I think the basic idea is sound, though.
I take ‘warm up’ to mean the amount of time before you and the flute can play as one - you know what the flute will do when you do something. (This makes sense inside my head - apologies if it’s limited to there !). For me (at the moment) it’s about 90 minutes, because I haven’t been playing the flute a whole lot in the last few months. I can play well before then, but that’s the time it takes for me to be happy with what’s going on.
What do you do to warm the flute sufficiently
that you can play without lots
of clogging? Is there any way to
speed the process (without reducing
the flute to cinders)?
I agree with the under arm warm up but add that keeping the head tilted more upward than downward decreases the amount clogging as it will discourage additional saliva mix to get into the head. I’ve become a much dryer player since I, 1) raised the level of my music stand when I use score, and, 2) when I look more upward, about where my own forehead would be if I were looking at myself in the mirror.
Years ago when playing the chromatic harmonica I would always be shaking out the excess moisture but found by looking up more that playing also became much dryer. I need to hold my whistles more upward also for the same reason. Actuall, holding the CHIN up more is where its really at.
Yes, I had a tendency to this also with the Irish flute.
But now, before I start to play,
I kiss my flute as if she’s my lover
and lo! and behold!
we come together faster.
!). For me (at the moment) it’s about 90 minutes, because I haven’t been playing the flute a whole lot in the last few months. I can play well before then, but that’s the time it takes for me to be happy with what’s going on.