Flute questions, answered by our band repair team. The one we hear most often is a worried parent whose child can’t produce a sound at all — which is normal, because unlike a clarinet or saxophone there’s no reed doing the work. Beyond that it’s mostly care: flutes are low-maintenance, but moisture left inside ruins pads, and gripping the keywork while assembling bends rods.
Yes, two ways. Yamaha is one of the manufacturers in our B Line, along with Jupiter, Selmer, Buffet and Gemeinhardt. We also rent a Premium Yamaha Line on five instruments, in the specific models school programs most often specify: the…
It depends on the line. A Line instruments are brand new, and they arrive with everything new, mouthpiece included. B Line and C Line instruments have been played before. Each of those is stripped down and restored on our bench,…
That is a reasonable instinct, and we would rather a teacher raised it than said nothing. Instruments do turn up in school music rooms that arrived from an online seller and cannot be played properly, and a teacher who has…
Five habits would prevent most of it: use a sturdy case and treat carrying the cello as part of playing it, run a humidifier in winter, oil brass valves and grease the slides, grease clarinet corks before assembly, and swab…
Almost certainly not broken. With no reed doing the work, most beginners take days or even a couple of weeks to make a first sound, and the fastest route there is practicing on the headjoint alone. This is the flute’s…
Swab the inside with the cleaning rod after every single session. Not weekly. Every time. Moisture left in the tube is what ruins pads, and it is also why some flutes come back to our bench smelling like last week’s…