with these PR minute video series Dr C
will share some of his secrets with you
on how to become a better
flutist hello my name is Dr David CLE
and welcome to another PR minute today
we're going to talk about cleaning your
flute I get asked this a lot by the
parents not the students so much but the
parents uh with that kind of investment
in an in strument I can understand their
concern about wanting to make sure that
there their their children don't
demolish the instrument trying to clean
it so let me go over a couple guidelines
I teach my students let's say you just
practice you're done
practicing uh then when first thing I
would do I would swab the flute out and
it's very important when you do it that
you're gentle I've seen something just
go like that you know you might push the
cork Rod out of this you might actually
Bend or ding the metal you don't want to
do that so you know you put it in
lightly
twist and I would use either a piece of
your dad's uh handkerchief make sure he
asked his permission for first and
something like that or you could go to
the music store and buy a cleaning cloth
like this and then I would do the foot
joint again I'm always being
gentle and then the body again gentle
always
gentle okay then once the inside is
swapped out what I want to do then I
want to clean the outside and again you
can either use uh one of your father's
uh clean cotton handkerchiefs or in my
case I bought a professional cleaning H
cloth from a music store came with my
flute then what you could do is you know
lightly again lightly gently wipe all
the body oils off I make sure
that that I always make sure the the
head joint the foot joint connections
are always clean well so that when I put
it back together they don't feel sticky
or get hard you always want to make sure
they're very free flowing as far as
movement so I clean the whole flute the
body and everything I even uh make sure
this can build up in here so either I
can take my little finger and gently you
notice I said gently get the the stuff
out of there or a
Q-tip then I do you know the foot joint
the same way now here this is where the
foot joint attaches to the main body so
I gently clean the inside there so it
doesn't have any kind of oil build up I
want to make sure it's nice and clean
and then I clean the
tube and then lastly I clean the keys
but I always make sure that I don't
touch the
pads you never want to touch the pads
the pads if you tear a pad it's a pad is
like a beach ball with air in it and
what happens to a beach ball with air in
if you get a hole it deflates while a
paddle deflate it'll no longer will seat
and if it doesn't seat that's when you
got to get it replaced that's probably
the biggest thing I see with young fluts
they tend to tear their pads so I just
make sure it's nice and clean very
gently getting the body all this well
then I do the same thing with the foot
joint I make sure all these connections
are very
clean again I'll take my little finger
here and I clean the inside and then I
go through and I gently wipe the oils
off the
flute and then I go to the keys I notice
something gently
wiping always gently never fast never in
a hurry because what if the the the
cloth catches on a key and you you bend
a key I've seen this many times then
lastly while I'm cleaning I don't I
deliberately try not to touch the
pads because again if you touch the pads
you stand the chance of ripping them and
then they deflate when they deflate they
leak and that means you have to replace
the pet so uh I do do that and you know
I'm usually on my way somebody asked me
once well how do I clean all this in
between here well you can take a
Q-tip and just gently move it around to
clean it out again taking in mind you
don't want to touch the pads it's so
important not touch the pad and what if
it tarnishes up in here you leave it
alone there's nothing you can do uh to
clean this unless you took the key
mechanism off unless you've had
experience doing that I would not
suggest up the flute doesn't break down
in one piece it breaks down in many
pieces okay and then what you do is once
you're twice a year you take it to your
music store and they adjust it and oil
it and get it all clean for you and what
they can do because they have the
technology the knowhow and the tools
they can take all your key mechanism off
and properly clean the tube and get all
the tarnish off and stuff like that what
about if the tube is
tarnishing what you could do then I've
actually got one I don't have it here on
me but you can actually go to a music
store and you can buy a a cleaning cloth
where one side has silver polish on it
and the other side is like a buffer and
so you can take the silver polish inside
and just gently again clean your
flute and do that then when you get the
Polish and you take the buffer side and
you just buff it off I would be very
careful that you don't get the polish on
your your pads I've seen flutes student
flutes where the end of the pads are all
black from the silver polish and then
sub subse subsequently I've seen where
they rip the pads so you don't want that
so other than that I would not touch the
flute I would gently wipe it clean or if
you have the silver polish on a a
professional cleaning cloth you can
gently clean it that way I would never
use uh if you go to a food store and you
can see silver cleaning chemicals I
would never use them on a flute never
they can pit the flute they may be very
abrasive I would not not do that this is
all I would do let the professionals get
the tarnish off your flute this has been
a tip from Dr David Clinton hopefully
this will help you keep your flute
spiffy and ready to go whenever you need
it thank
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