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Repairing Your Flute

1. When should I bring in my flute for a checkup? What will you do? How long will it take and how much will it cost?
2. How often will my flute need an overhaul? What will you do? How long will it take and how much will it cost?
3. How much do you charge for a repad?
4. What kind of pads should I get for my flute?
5. I saw a flute repair kit for sale on eBay. Is it worth buying to repair my flute? Or, what should I get if I want to repair my own flute?
6. I have trouble playing my flute. Then I gave it to someone else to try and s/he said there was nothing wrong with it. So it's fine and it's just me, right?
7. Can you add extensions to my flute?
8. Do you work on other instruments?
9. What kinds of flutes do you work on? Who are your clients?
10. I need to attempt an emergency repair by myself -- NOW!

Buying a Flute

1. I recently acquired a (free | really inexpensive) flute from (eBay | garage sale | pawn shop | flea market | the back of my closet). Is it worth getting repaired? Am I better off getting something new rather than putting money into this?
2. What flutes do you recommend buying?
3. What kind of material makes for a better sound in a flute: silver or gold? Or maybe something else?
4. Why do flutes vary so much in price?
5. Will you check out a flute that I am thinking of buying?
6. Will you provide an insurance appraisal letter for my instrument?

Flute Dos and Don'ts

1. Are there any materials that I should keep away from my flute?
2. Can I wash my flute? Or how should I clean my flute?
3. I just took my flute out into the rain while marching and....
4. Keep your flute safe.

Flute Resources

1. Where can I find a flute teacher?
2. How can I donate an old flute to a public school? Contact Music in Schools Today.
3. Check out my page of links.

One year is a good benchmark for bringing in your instrument for adjustments. Regular adjustments are great as preventative measures and help keep the instrument in more consistent playing shape. Musicians are always compensating when playing their instrument. The more consistent your flute, the less compensation you make. In some cases I've seen people compensate to the point where they have to relearn aspects of playing when their instrument is put back into proper playing condition. So its easier on the player and the instrument to have regular checkups.

I work according to need and I don't have a set formula for what I do for a clean, oil, and adjust. If your instrument was used heavily and needs more work, then I'll do more and charge more. And if your instrument is fundamentally okay and only needs very small adjustments, then Ill charge less. Not all flutes are made the same and some will go out of adjustment more readily than others will. So when I can, I will spend more time to correct an underlying problem to improve the long-term functioning of the instrument.

Waiting longer than a year for a checkup is not necessarily a horrible thing. It's not always possible to get your flute in for regular work. When you bring your instrument in, however, you should anticipate paying more for a visit than the person who brings in a flute annually.

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I have seen flutes last anywhere from four to thirteen years with consistent playing before needing overhauls. Piccolos tend to last longer between overhauls. For an overhaul I install new pads, thoroughly clean and adjust all mechanisms, clean the body, oil the wood, replace and adjust all corks and felts, replace springs as required, do simple soldering work and dent removal, hand polish, machine polish only heavily scratched instruments, and play test the instrument. I will not automatically machine buff instruments unless required or requested. If you have scratches to remove, please point these out.

For a beginner's instrument, I will need it for a week. For an intermediate or professional flute, I will need it for two weeks. Please contact me for prices. Major mechanical or body work or special requests for buffing and spring replacement may result in extra cost.

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I don't do just repads. Replacing all pads in the flute results in having to make adjustments throughout the mechanisms. Most work in an overhaul centers around the replacement of pads and resultant adjustments. If you try to save money by putting in new pads and not making these adjustments, your flute will probably play worse than before the repad. If your flute really needs all its pads to go, then it's time for an overhaul. But if most of the flute is fine and just a couple of pads need replacement, you can often get away with much less work and cost. If the pads being replaced are felt, then anticipate that the adjustments will go out between the old and new pads more quickly than when uniform pads are involved. If you are replacing Straubinger pads, because they are highly consistent you do not have the same instability issues and the flute tends to remain in adjustment.

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I work with high quality felt pads and Straubinger pads. I do not work with synthetic, gold, or cork pads. If they can work on your instrument, I strongly recommend that you install Straubinger pads. For your flute, Straubinger pads require a high degree of precision in the instrument construction. Ideally, the instrument body will also be a single alloy and not plated. If your instrument was not made or cannot be adjusted to acceptable tolerances, then you should stay with felt pads.

The Straubinger pad for piccolos are made differently than their counterparts for flute and can allow for slightly less precision in tone hole manufacturing than felt pads. On many student piccolos, however, tone holes are so uneven that you must either use the softest of felt pads and press hard or else level all the tone holes. Leveling tone holes on a plated student piccolo, however, will result in peeling.

For both flutes and piccolos, Straubinger pads allow for a lighter playing touch and effect positive sound change in the instrument. In flutes, Straubinger pads pop an instrument's sound. They do not change the sound as a louder headjoint would, but make sound more immediate. In piccolos, Straubinger pads significantly mellow sound and may improve overall responsiveness of problem notes.

If you have an exceptionally heavy touch on your flute, then I would recommend felt and not Straubinger pads.

Some manufacturers are coming out with their own proprietary pads (e.g., Muramatsu). If needed, I will special order their pads for your instrument. This will require more time and expense but will result in a more consistently adjusted instrument.

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If you are going to put the effort into repairing your flute, then you should use high quality materials. Most kits that I've seen on the Internet include low grade pads. If you put a low grade pad in your flute, getting the flute to play well is extremely difficult if not impossible. It is possible that the instrument will sound worse with these pads. The biggest investment in flute repair is your time so don't short-change your time with bad parts and materials.

If you want to get into flute repair, read two books: Theobold Boehm's "The Flute and Flute Playing" and Jim Phelan's "The Complete Guide to the Flute". You should also have prior experience working with tools and fixing things. If you also need to learn basics of mechanical repair, then practice first on larger objects. Flutes and piccolos present their own difficulties by virtue of having such small parts. The tools used for flutes and piccolo are small and specialized and not easily come by. You will need access to suppliers of jewerly, watch, or instrument repair equipment.

Then you should ideally work with someone who has experience with repair. No two repairpeople approach problems the same or use the same techniques or materials. If you learn from more than one person, then you have that much more exposure to differing methodologies and tools. How to find this person or business is your own process.

Finally, you should learn how to play test an instrument. This is different than playing your own instrument. Play testing means finding all the obvious and not so obvious problems that can crop up in an instrument. You should also learn to play with as light a touch as possible to test to see that the adjustments are to extremely precise tolerances. If you aren't interested in doing flute repair for others, then you only need to learn how to test your instrument to your own playing tolerances.

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This isn't always easy to figure out. It's certainly a good idea to have someone try out your flute if you think there's something wrong with it. However, people play differently. Sometimes these differences reflect the player's ability. In this case, it is you and not the flute. In other instances, playing differences can mask a problem in an instrument. If someone can play an instrument that is out of adjustment, that could mean he or she plays with a relatively heavy touch. I've heard of teachers who encourage a heavy finger touch in students, but today that is a rare teacher. Most flutists try to cultivate a lighter touch in order to save their hands and improve dexterity. A heavy touch also puts more wear on the instrument. I've seen how people who play maladjusted flutes eventually develop heavier and heavier touches. You get positive feedback when you press hard, so unconsciously or not you continue to do so and get into a viscous feedback cycle.

That being said, no two people will ever have the same touch and there is a wide range of functional finger pressure. Well-made flutes are constructed to take the punishment of many hours of playing over a lifetime. And learning to play a flute versus learning how to test a flute to find the smallest of quirks are very different ways of playing an instrument and ideally are not intermingled. It does not serve the flutist constantly to hear problems in the instrument when s/he plays; the job of the flutist is to make the flute sound great. Conversely, the repairperson needs to be mindful of not trying to make the instrument sound good; you need to find out when the instrument fails to sound right.

So if your hands are hurting and your flute isn't responding like it used to, it's really time to have it taken in for a look. That way you can eliminate the instrument as a problem.

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Quite a few flutists are modifying keywork for comfort using a variety of solutions. The only caveats that I have about this are to make certain that added weight from extensions isn't a problem, that mechanically your instrument can support what you'd like to add, and that the problem of discomfort when playing isn't better addressed by rethinking your body. Otherwise extensions can create other problems in the instrument or else in your hands. I only work with someone in the San Francisco Bay Area on extensions or modifications to a flute. People's hands are very different and there's no generic solution to modifications. And sometimes you have to go through a process of elimination to determine the best solution.

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I work on C flutes, piccolos, alto flutes in G, Bass flutes in C, and one day I imagine a contrabass flute will wander by my way (or I may have to pick up a pot of glue from the hardware store and pay it a house call). I work on modern and vintage instruments, which means that I know a bit about the fun and funky flutes of the latter part of the 18th and the 19th century. There really is not much that I can do with a baroque instrument given that it has few if any keys and most of my work focuses on mechanisms and pads. And while I'm comfortable working with wooden instruments, the baroque wooden flute may have issues that I cannot resolve.

I confess that once I fiddled with a sousaphone's sticky valve, but other than that I am a flute-exclusive person. And I enjoy working with flutists of different genres who play different kinds of flutes and instruments. But if you're a doubler don't try handing me your saxophone and pretending that it's a bass flute: I'm smarter than I look.

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I work with a wide range of flutists in the San Francisco Bay Area: professionals, students, accomplished adult amateurs, the semi-professional, the "intermediate" player who doesn't feel like a beginner but doesn't feel like he or she plays "very well", and beginners of all ages. So I work on both very high end instruments and on student instruments.

Occasionally I will run into a flute that I will not work on because the manufacturing of the instrument is so flawed that it is a disposable versus repairable instrument.

Please contact me if you would like to have a specific client referral.

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This is my most frequently asked question. It's also a question that I cannot answer without examining the flute and knowing your expectations for the instrument. Ideally, you will never buy an instrument without first having played it. But this isn't always happening in the age of Internet shopping and people are possessing instruments with sometimes dubious histories.

At some level, if you can pick up the instrument, play it without too much discomfort or difficulty, and are happy with how it sounds, then there may be no immediate need for repair. While regular maintenance is important for overall longevity and quality of play in the flute, people have a broad range of tolerances for how well they need their instrument to play. One caveat about playing something until it falls apart is that a person may compensate for a maladjusted flute that eventually ends up hurting him or herself. In some cases, people who have to press very hard to play the flute can bend keys and rods and prematurely wear through pads. Or they can begin to develop hand, neck, and shoulder problems.

There are many inexpensive flutes floating around the marketplace. There are also more manufacturers and cutthroat price slashing all over the Internet. This does not mean that flutes are getting better; it simply means that cheaper and frequently less skilled labor is being used to put out what is intended as a disposable instrument. People also have a worldwide garage sale for a legion of barely played flutes. Buying the cheapest instrument that you can find could mean getting something that will have a limited lifespan. And if the instrument was not well made to begin with, then it may end up being better suited as a lamp than a flute. Conversely I have seen people end up with rather nice instruments for very little. With an hour of work, they sound okay. Before you buy, ask how much the instrument was played and how it was used. And as with anything mechanical flutes have a lifespan, so find out how old it is. And while it is not a guarantee for a quality instrument, overall it is a safer bet to purchase an instrument made by a better known manufacturer.

The bottom line: You could buy an inexpensive instrument on the Internet and then find out that it does not play well or at all and then get an estimate for repair that exceeds what you paid for the flute. Or you may be told that it is not worth putting any money into repairing the flute. So shop carefully.

There are additional considerations to take into account when deciding between an inexpensive used versus new instrument. If you have a used instrument with significant wear on it, then it will probably require more immediate and frequent attention than a new instrument. And if the pads on the instrument are very old, sometimes it is most prudent to overhaul the instrument (more money spent, better result) or simply not do the precise adjustments that can really make an instrument sing (less money spent, not so great result). However, I have seen brand new instruments that are in immediate need of adjustment to work well or were simply never made properly, so new does not always equal better. And if you have any sentimental associations with your flute, you lose that when you buy another instrument.

And then there's fate. If you find something you can afford and it plays fine without work, then you are a fortunate person. The pads and their skins may give out in about six months or a year maybe longer, but it could be fine until then. Or if that flute from grandma's attic turns out to be a vintage Powell, then you truly lucked out with flutes and relatives. And when in doubt, a vintage Powell always deserves an overhaul.

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Before shopping for an instrument, you should know your budget and the sound you want.

If you don't have a working budget, then shopping becomes unmanageable. As a general rule, the more you spend the nicer the instrument. And there are many different qualities of instrument being sold. So unless you have a sense of how much you can spend, you can end up being pulled in an infinite number of directions.

Manufacturers also design their instruments to have different characteristics. For the most part, you will probably best be able to evaluate the characteristic of sound. The sound we like can be highly subjective and impressionable. So as you try more flutes with differing colors and timbres, it can be increasingly difficult to know what flute sound satisfies you.

Finally, make sure the instrument feels comfortable. Instruments have different weights, tone hole placements, and mechanisms. Make sure that the instrument you like does not cause you physical discomfort.

It is difficult to say that any particular manufacturer is better than another. Manufacturers try to maintain precise building specifications so customers can expect consistency in their instruments. However, the same flute model can vary year to year and no two instruments are ever clones of one another. If you have an opportunity to attend a flute fair or convention, it's a chance to be exposed to many different makers. A convention can be overwhelming, however, and not the easiest environment for purchasing an instrument. If you are comfortable making a purchase at a major event, then do it. Otherwise, follow up with the dealer to get an extended loan of a few instruments that you like. You will have to pay for shipping and insurance, but then you will have the opportunity to try out an instrument in familiar venues to get a better sense of sound.

If you are buying the instrument online, see about getting several at a time during a trial period. It's much easier to evaluate a flute side by side another. Again, there are shipping costs for trial periods. If you are in a music store, you should be able to try several kinds of instruments while you are there without incurring expense. Many stores, however, cannot afford to carry different manufacturers of higher end flutes.

And in the end you will choose something that you like. And most importantly you should be happy with your purchase.

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There is no agreement on this question and I doubt there ever will be. Generally but not absolutely speaking this is the disagreement. Physicists say people think they hear a difference when there is no significant difference in sound based on materials used. And manufacturers say materials used in construction can make an important difference in sound. From my perspective, I think there are differences in sound among different materials. However, the material is only one of many determinants of an instrument's sound. All factors together determine what the flute can do. I do not think that there is such a thing as a definitive "gold" sound versus a "silver" sound that everyone hears immediately when you play. You will be able to see the difference much more immediately than hear the difference. But I do believe there are sound tendencies in different materials. How important this is and whether or not one is better than another can't be easily quantified. Some people say they like silver, others say they like gold or platinum or something else. Some people change their minds over time. Others say they can't hear a difference.

And don't forget that no matter how expensive the instrument, if it's out of adjustment then its sound will be compromised. You can easily make the most expensive professional instrument sound worse than a well maintained and manufactured student model instrument by putting it out of adjustment.

I say if you like it and can afford it and think it's worth it, then get whatever you want and be happy.

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A great deal of the cost of a flute is workmanship. A well made flute will last longer, be more reliable, and sound better. Precious metals also cost dearly and require greater skill to work with.

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Yes. There will be a nominal fee associated with examining a flute and providing an assessment of its condition. Before buying a flute, you should also have your teacher look at it and listen to you play it.

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There will be a nominal fee associated with examining a flute and providing you with a letter of appraisal. This will be the value of a new instrument of the same or comparable manufacture. This is not an assessment of the value of the instrument on the open market. I will only provide the letter if I can personally examine the instrument.

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Things to avoid include:

• Rubber. It will degrade silver and silver plated flutes.
• Wool and the Clothes in Your Closet. Okay, wool is used in pads. But wool does tarnish silver. And wool attracts wool moths that love to eat flute pads. So if you plan to store your flute, do so in an air-tight bag. I recently saw a flute with Straubinger pads (which use a microfiber "felt") that was lunched on by what was probably wool moths, so apparently being stored in the proximity of clothes is too close for comfort. Again, the flute gets the air tight plastic bag treatment if in storage. And don't worry about wool being in pads.
• Salt. It reacts poorly with silver and most metals. Remember that we have salt in our bodies, so that's why you want to wipe down your flute after playing. And if you are a person who tends to tarnish your silver flute when handling it, wipe or wash your hands before playing.
• Water. Wipe down your flute after playing and if you tend to generate a lot of moisture in your instrument then wipe it down while playing and also blot the pads with absorbent paper. And if you play a wooden instrument, never store it without first swabbing away the water in its bore.
• Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Between Meal Snacks. Please limit your intake of food before playing. If you need to eat before playing, then rinse your mouth or brush your teeth.

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If you want to clean your flute I would recommend:

• Wiping it down with an absorbent, non-scratching cloth. There are many options in music stores. I like to use a microfiber cleaning cloth.
• Dampening either a cotton-swab or all-cotton pipe cleaner with denatured alcohol and carefully cleaning between the keys and tone holes. If you have an open hole flute you can also clean inside the open keycup holes. And don't forget to clean your embouchure riser.
• Using pointed, wooden toothpicks (either rounded or squared -- the type used for picking up food) and cleaning crevices. Rings and tone holes look great after a cleaning.
• Dampening a facial tissue with denatured alcohol and cleaning inside your barrel, your headjoint tenon, your footjoint tenon, and the inside of your footjoint. In other words, clean the connecting points of your flute.
• My new, favorite cleaning method: Goddard's Silver and Jewelry Polishing Cloth. It removes tarnish, does not leave a slippery coating on the instrument, and unlike red rouge polishing cloths does not shed a dust that clogs the mechanism. It leaves your flute looking terrific. It is a soft cloth impregnated with polishing agents, so you need to keep the cloth in its box or in some kind of bag.
• If you would like to polish your headjoint, then I suggest Hagerty silversmith's polish. It's fine to use a liquid polish on the headjoint where it's safely away from the mechanisms. When you are ready to remove the polish, wipe it off the headjoint. Do not put the headjoint under water. And I do not recommend chemical dips to clean your instrument. If you are VERY, VERY careful, you can use liquid polish on your flute's body. If you are polishing the body, then I recommend only dampening the cleaning cloth slightly with polish, wiping it on a small area of the flute body, then quickly wiping it off. Do not allow the polish to dry on the instrument and risk getting particles of polish in your mechanisms. If you want to polish your key cups, put even less polish on the cleaning cloth and polish the tops of keys leaving no polish behind. DO NOT go near the mechanisms with silver polish. If the polish gets into the mechanisms, then you need to have the flute completely disassembled and cleaned and oiled. The safest way to polish your keycups is to use Goddard's silver and jewelry polish cloth.

One day I will post better instructions with pictures under the articles section of my site.

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Marching in the rain is very hard on your instrument. If you need to play something on the field, I recommend a piccolo. It's smaller, easier to carry, less likely to get bumped or banged, and you can better protect it from the elements. Several clever flutists that I know will take a plastic bag, snip off a bottom corner of the bag leaving a hole just wide enough for the piccolo headjoint, push the headjoint through it, and then put his/her hands into the bag's opening that is now hanging under the piccolo while you play. Voila! Instant piccolo raincoat!

Barring this, invest in a "marching flute". These are found easily on EBay. Get something that "can play" and don't invest a lot of money in it. And when its marching days are over it can be made into an attractive lamp.

But before you accuse me of being against all marching, let it be known that in my advancing age I have << shudder >> resumed marching band. I am also armed with a plastic piccolo with a plated headjoint that I purchased on EBay for less than $100. My flute and wooden piccolo stay inside.

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• Insurance. If your flute is too precious to be lost or stolen, then it should be insured. You can do this either through a home, renter's, or comprehensive insurance policy, or insure an instrument through a specialist like Clarion or Vivaldi. I believe membership in the National Flute Association will get you a discount when you insure through Clarion. You will need to call around to determine what is the best policy for you. Also make sure that you insure your flute for an amount that will equal a new, replacement flute should this one be stolen. Read the fine print and make sure you understand under what circumstances the flute will be covered or not.
  For a nominal fee I can examine your flute and provide an appraisal letter that you can use to insure your instrument. This will be for the value of a new instrument of the same or comparable manufacture. This is not an assessment of the value of the instrument on the open market. I will only provide the letter if I can personally examine the instrument.
• Do not leave your flute unattended in a car. Many flutes get stolen from cars. These flutes were often hidden under seats or put in the trunk, so don't assume that if it is out of sight that it is safe. The corollary to this is you should plan your day so that you will not be carrying or moving so much that it feels necessary to leave your flute somewhere unattended. Keep your flute in a bag that is always on your body and will allow you to keep your hands free.
• Do not put your flute on top of your car. Have you ever laughed as a car drove by with a coffee cup on the car roof?
• Do not put your flute on a place someone sits. This greatly diminishes the likelihood that someone sits on your flute.
• A case is always safer than a flute peg. If you're in rehearsal and are taking a break, strongly consider putting your instruments back into their cases rather than leaving them on music pegs. If there are pets or children (or non-flutist adults) dashing around the house, then the case is safer.
• Case covers offer extra protection. Padded case covers dampen any shocks to the instruments in a case. And some cases pop open when dropped, so a snugly fitted case cover will prevent the flute from falling out if dropped. Case covers are also where you can store swab sticks, cleaning cloths, pencils, papers, pictures, and other items. You should not fill the flute case with any item that presses against the instrument and could damage it.

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In the San Francisco Bay area we are fortunate to have many excellent flutists and flute teachers. Contact local music schools and conservatories for teachers. You can also find instructors online. One site with many flute teachers is Craig's List. I also keep a random listing of websites of San Francisco Bay Area flutists. These are sites of some of the people that I know and does not imply any endorsement. This list represents only a few of the many flutists in the area. Many of these people also teach, so contact them individually to discuss your learning needs.

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Updated 04-14-2008