 Hi everyone, so today I am going to be talking about the basics of how to clean your flute. And I'm also going to talk specifically about how to prevent tarnish from building up on your flute or if you already have tarnish on your flute, how to get rid of it and keep it from coming back. So the first cleaning product that every fluteist should have, and if they don't already, you should definitely purchase it immediately because it's really important in order to keep your flute looking as clean as possible on the outside. And this is the microfiber polishing cloth. And most of the time when you get a flute and buy one new, or even if you're renting one from a music store, your flute normally comes with one of these polishing cloths. However, sometimes they're not made of microfiber and those are still located used, but microfiber is the best cloth that's going to pick up all of your fingerprints and all those tiny dust particles that get kind of into the crevices of the surface of your flute as you're playing. So some good things to look out for when you're looking to purchase one of these microfiber cloths is to make sure that there aren't any added chemicals in these cloths. Just make sure it is a plain microfiber cloth. If you see like looking online or if you're in a store and you see a microfiber cloth with added chemicals, I would advise you to stay away from those because you don't always know what chemicals are in the cloth. And if it's something that's not safe for your flute, it can literally rip off the silver plating on your flute. So definitely look for a cloth that's just plain microfiber. I have a couple examples of microfiber cloths here. I have this nice purple one and this actually came with my flute. And a lot of times when you have a more pre-professional or professional level flute, those will normally come with a microfiber cloth. Some of the more beginner flutes or student line models may have just a different type of cotton polishing cloth or some different fiber. And like I said, those are fine to use, but if you can, I would purchase a microfiber cloth just because it's going to be a little more effective at cleaning the outside of your flute. So I have this purple one. I also have a nice leopard pattern one and they come in literally any color or pattern that you would want. So good fashion statement too. And they're not very expensive. They're normally under $10. So definitely affordable and definitely something good that you should get if you really want to take care of your flute. So before I move on to the next thing, I just want to give a quick demonstration of how to polish the outside of your flute with your microfiber cloth. So just take it in your hand and then use your other hand to hold it. I just hold it normally around the middle, around the keys. And I start normally from the barrel at the top and this is just the main body of the flute here. And just kind of go in a circular motion and you'll literally see any fingerprints that you have or any really small dust particles will just wipe away. And your flute will also be a little bit more shiny than it was to begin with. And then I just kind of work my way down the flute. And one thing that I really want to stress is that as you're working your way down the body of the flute, make sure that your cloth does not get caught up underneath any of your keys. And the reason why that is so important is because under your keys you have pads. And these pads are made of various fibers and medic fibers. And they're very delicate. So if your cloth happens to get under one of these pads, it could potentially rip the pad. And if your pad tears, that ends up being a pretty expensive fix, especially if it's more than one pad. So be very careful to not let your cloth slip underneath the keys only on the tops of the keys and the main body of the flute. And after you've done this for a while, it kind of becomes a habit and you don't have to be so careful about it just because you get used to exactly where you should be polishing your flute. And obviously for the foot joint and head joint, you would just do more of the same thing. For the head joint, you don't have to be so careful because there aren't any keys or pads. So you can literally just start at the top or the bottom wherever you prefer and just work your way down and polish it off. So while we're on the subject of head joints, another quick thing you can do, and this is not something that you have to do every day, you can do this every couple of months probably, just depending on how much you play your flute and how much you get. But for your head joint, sometimes you'll notice that inside the lip plate here, it will get a little bit grimy and you'll notice some little kind of black buildup on there. To clean this, it's very simple. You can use rubbing alcohol, just really basic rubbing alcohol that you can buy at the grocery store. So what you'll do is you will put a little bit of the rubbing alcohol on a q-tip and then you'll stick your q-tip inside and go around the rim of your lip plate. And as you pull it out, you'll notice that there's a little bit of black stuff on it and that's a good thing because you're cleaning out the inside of the lip plate. So you can stick it in there as far as you really are able to get your q-tip to make sure that you clean out just as much as you can of the buildup. You may also notice if you have open hole keys, like I do, that over time you get kind of some dirt buildup inside the key cups here. And that's also completely normal. So what you can do for that is also take a q-tip and just go around the inside rim of all of your keys. And you can put a little bit of pressure on there to help kind of loosen up some of the dirt and grind that's under there. And as you pull your q-tip out, you should notice that it's picked up some of the dirt. Another basic cleaning material that's really good for any flutus of any level is flute pad paper. And some of you may have already used this before or maybe you've seen it, but it is really, really thin paper. You can almost see through it. It's that thin. So what you will do is you'll take one of your flute pad papers here and let's say that... Let's see, let's say this key right here has some stickiness to it. This key actually does often get really sticky. So what you'll do, you'll take your flute pad paper and you will insert it right between the key and the body of your flute. And you'll press down. Now this next part is really important because if you do this the wrong way you could end up damaging your pads. So what you're going to do is you're just going to press your key down and lift it up several times. And you can move the pad paper around as you do it every time you lift it up just so it can get a chance to absorb as much water as possible. And then when you want to remove your pad paper, do not remove it by yanking it out while the key is closed. If you yank too hard like that, it can also rip your pads and like we said before that can get really expensive to replace. So the correct way to remove it is to make sure to lift up your key and then pull the paper out and then you're good to go. And if you notice that it's still sticky, just take another corner of your paper and keep dabbing and do the same thing. Sometimes if the weather is particularly humid, you'll notice that your pads get really sticky and you might have to take a minute and dab it with the paper for a little bit until that stickiness starts to go away. One way that you can prevent stickiness from happening is by making sure to swab out your flute every time that you play. So for the inside of your flute, you're going to want to use a cleaning rod and some type of cleaning cloth. And normally when you get your flute and this definitely is a staple thing for beginner flutes as well, you will get a cleaning rod which looks something like this, a really basic rod. Lots of times there are wooden rods and my flute actually comes with a wooden rod and it looks like this. And they'll normally have a little hole right here, it kind of looks like a giant needle. And what you'll do is you'll take your cleaning rod and you'll take the cleaning cloth that normally comes with it. And this is different than the polishing cloth, it's a center cloth. And normally whatever they give you with your flute is normally safe to use. So what you will do is you'll take that and thread it like you're threading a needle and you'll stick that in the end of your flute. And I don't have a cloth with me, I'm sorry, but just for example, stick this in the end of your flute, push all the way through. And you'll pull it out the other side. So one thing to make sure of when you're using your cleaning rod and your cleaning cloth, make sure that the needle side goes in first and make sure you go all the way through and pull it out the other side. And don't try to pull it back through the flute. If you do that, your cleaning cloth will build up and literally get stuck in the flute. And that happens to lots of flute players, especially young students when they're first starting out, it's just a typical thing. But you don't really think of, but it makes sense after it happens why that wasn't a good idea. So just know it advance just to let it go all the way through the flute and pull it out on the other side. So what I use instead of the cleaning rod and the cleaning cloth for my flute is something that's called a flute flag. And what a flute flag is is literally a little flag that you'll use to swab out your flute just like you would with a cleaning cloth and a cleaning rod. What's awesome about these is you don't have to worry about getting them stuck in your flute. They can go in and out the same direction. And these are made of microfiber just like your polishing cloth is. So they're very easy to clean. What you'll do is you'll just take some hand soap, put it on your flag and then run it under some warm water and just rinse it off. And then just let it dry for a day or two and then it's ready to go again. And what's also really cool about these is they come with a little extension and what you'll do is you'll just screw it on to the end. And this is really useful for when you're playing your flute for an extended period of time and you don't want to take the whole thing apart just to swab it out. So you put this together and then you stick it through your flute and it goes all the way up to the head joint and you'll just turn it back and forth as you pull it out of the flute and you've gotten rid of all the extra moisture that's inside your flute and you're ready to play again. So these are really cool. They come in lots of different colors and I highly recommend them if you want something that's easy to use and something that's also really effective. I will also post a link down below to where you can find some of these flute flags. Okay, so now I'm going to talk about Tarnish. And basically what Tarnish is is just build up on your flute. And Tarnish can happen to any type of metal material. So if you have like rings or any type of jewelry and you leave it sitting around for a while, it just collects particles from the air and ends up looking kind of dingy and maybe a little black particles on it and that's what Tarnish is. And since your flute is a metal object, the same thing can happen to it. So don't be alarmed if your flute gets Tarnish on it. It's perfectly normal for it to happen. It can obviously be prevented a little bit by making sure to polish it and clean it every time that you practice. But if you do get Tarnish on your flute, I have a few things that you can do to help get rid of it. So the first thing that's probably best to do if you're able to is to send your flute off somewhere to get cleaned professionally. And what they will do is they will take your flute and strip it down literally to the body only. It will take off all the rods, all the keys, everything that's in the way and get to the body of the flute. And if it's really Tarnish, they can dip it in a special mixture of different substances and it will literally just pull the Tarnish right off of your flute and it'll look almost like a brand new flute. So that's for really Tarnish flute. And that's totally something that people have to deal with and it's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you don't take care of your flute. It just happens sometimes depending on where you live, what type of climate you live in that can really affect if your flute gets Tarnish or not. A second thing you can do if you aren't able to actually send your flute somewhere to get professionally cleaned and polished, you can use special silver polishing cloths. Now when it comes to silver polishing cloths, these are different from your normal microfiber cloths. These actually do have chemicals in them. So it's really important for you to be super cautious when you're looking online or in a store to buy a silver polishing cloth. Because like I said earlier, if you don't know what chemicals are in here and what they're actually doing, it could actually harm your flute rather than help it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to post a link below to flute world. And this website has a really good polishing cloth like this and it comes in little wipes. There's about 12 of them. And you can use one for quite a while until it's like completely black. So they should last you several years if you use them correctly. Also another thing to take note of, don't use these chemical cloths very often. If your flute is very tarnished, you can use them and get the immediate tarnish off. But after that, just go back to your microfiber cloth and only use the chemical cloth if you absolutely need it, if the tarnish is really bad. Because if you use the chemical cloths over and over repeatedly, it's going to start to wear on the finish of your flute. These are a good thing, but if you start to use them too much, they can do more harm than good to your flute. So just be very cautious when you use these and I wouldn't use these more than once every eight months to a year probably. Another way that you can prevent tarnish from building up on your flute besides polishing it and cleaning it every day is to use something called an anti-tarnished strip. And there are these little strips that look like this. They don't have any smell to them. They're just like a little thin piece of paper. And they contain some chemicals and then that help keep your flute from getting tarnished. And what you'll do is you'll literally insert this into your flute case, just put it at the bottom of your case. And then you can place, I normally put mine where the body of my flute rests in the case and then you just place your flute right on top of it. And these, you'll want to change out about every three months if you're playing your flute regularly. Or if you have a flute that you're just storing somewhere and it's not going to be played regularly, you can change these about every six months. And these anti-tarnished strips come in packs of about 10 to 15 and they look like this. And it's literally just like a little sleeve of them. And since you're changing them just every three months, they should last you a few years. And they're very inexpensive. I'll also put a link to that down below as well. So those are just some of my very basic tips on how to keep your flute looking as clean and as close to new as possible. If you have any other questions about something that you wanted me to talk about that I didn't cover, just let me know in the comments and I'll be happy to answer any of those questions. I am getting really close to my first 100 subscribers. Thank you guys so much for subscribing and watching my first few videos. But once I get to that point, I will be able to release my arrangement for the City of Stars, flute trio. And I have been trying to get my arrangement published, but unfortunately the writer of the Lollolin music has not made that music available to be arranged and published yet. So what I'm going to do for now is make it available to you guys that you can play it for fun. Because I enjoyed playing it and I know so many of you have asked and I want you to be able to play it too. So just know that it's not going to be published, it's not official, but if you want to play it with friends for fun, I will totally make that available to you guys. So make sure to tell all of your flute friends to check out my channel and subscribe. And pretty shortly I should be able to post that link for that cover. Thank you guys so much for watching this video and I hope it's been helpful for you. And again, let me know if you have any questions and I will see you next time. Bye.