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I have 2 Shakuhachi that I play, and I keep them on a stand I made. I tend to play quite a bit, but I'm not sure what "quite a bit" is, compared to most. Anyway, I like my flutes out, and never keep them in moisture bags. I really like them easily accessible, and I like seeing them. I don't know exactly where I'd even PUT them if I kept them in plastic bags.
I suppose I could make a moisture seal bag out of fabric with plastic sewn in, but I'm not sure how great that'd be.
Seriously, if you just keep your flute inside, treat it nicely, and just play it a bit during the day, is there much real danger? I had lesser flutes crack on me, but I also took them outside with me all the time.
Thanks for the info.
-Eddie
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If you live in Seattle you don't have to worry about humidity, there is plenty of it. Just don't let your shakuhachi get in direct sunlight or near a heat source and you should be fine.
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I see. Good to know. Thanks!
-Eddie
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It was recommended by my teacher that I keep one of those green snake viola humidifier things in my shakuhachi, then seal the bag. Big mistake! Perhaps I misunderstood his instructions. Anyway, I hadn't played it for about a week or so and, when I got it out again, there was mildew in the bore. It had a rather unpleasant odor, too. Eventually the blowing edge insert even loosened up and had to be repaired. After that unfortunate experience I got into the habit, if I didn't play my flute for a couple of days, of simply blowing a puff of warm breath into the bag and resealing it. No more humidifiers.
Cheers,
Brian
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kyoreiflutes wrote:
I like my flutes out, and never keep them in moisture bags. I really like them easily accessible, and I like seeing them.
-Eddie
I know what you mean. I keep mine in the bags when not using them, but it is a hassle having to unpack them every time I want to play. It would be nicer if I could just pick one up and play for a few minutes then put it down again. This is what I do with my Native American and Irish flutes.
I guess your attitude to humidity and care will depend on the value of your flutes. If you own a high-end shakuhachi ($5,000+) and your professional career depends on it being available, you might be more careful than if you paid a few hundred dollars for a student model.
My compromise: on weekdays, I play only my 1.8. I have a 1 hour practice time every evening, and pack it away afterwards. The unpacking ritual is probably good preparation for my practice anyway. On weekends, I unpack them both and leave them out all weekend so I can play them anytime, then they go back in the bags on Sunday night.
At the moment, it is summer here, and fairly humid. When the winter comes round, our house is continually warmed with gas-powered ducted heating, so it becomes more important to worry about packing.
For the record, I have had one flute crack in the past. It was a plain bamboo side-blown "Arabian" flute by Erik (theFluteMaker). It started cracking when I first got it, and I could hear it crack a couple of times as I played it. It was only the skin, never went further, and it has settled down now. I got that one in the winter (here), so the change from summer in the USA to winter in Australia may have had an effect. Anyhow, I would not like to have that happen with my Yung 2.5, so I think it is worthwhile keeping up the care.
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Also don't leave your flute out in an airconditioned room. Probably most people wouldn't do that but I did have a friend from Japan who returned to Florida, left his shakuhachi out all night in an airconditioned room and found it cracked in the morning. In Japan we're lucky having the humidity so I leave most of the flutes which I'm playing regularly in a glass cabinet along with a glass of water. Just a week ago my teacher mentioned that he had gotten a big shock as a 2.0 that he had had for several decades in a glass cabinet split; he had neglected to replenish the water in his glass, though, and hadn't played the flute in some time. I keep my other flutes in cloth bags inside plastic or paper tubes for keeping documents and so far have had no problems. I visited a shakuhachi player friend in Paris a few years back and he always double wrapped his flutes in plastic bags and then cloth bags after he finished playing as the climate was dry, but he didn't use any dampits or put anything inside his flutes.
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Here's an odd question. Is it valuable to place a bit of moisture in the plastic bag before putting the Shakuhachi away? I live in I have a Toby (stay with me on this one) clothing steamer. I figure its hot air that sanitizes the bag (as opposed to blowing into the bad). I let the heat dissipate and place the instrument in the bag. Would this be a GOOD daily ritual or a bad one? I treat the instrument religiously. When I first got it on Friday, I carefully unwrapped the fabric case, removed it from the plastic bag and the soft cloth with the bead at the end. I ornately wrapped it all back up before realizing the interior cloth was basically the spit rag (in lack of a more poetic definition) in either case, I’d like to think I treat it well. I live in Canada where the weather is nuts and my apartment is very dry...
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I live in Utah, in the high desert.
Here's what I recommend (and it's not at all an odd question...):
Get a dishwashing sponge and cut about an inch off one end so you have a piece about 1 x 2 inches (3 x 5 cm).
Wet the piece of sponge and squeeze out the excess water so it's still good and damp, but not dripping.
Put your flute into the plastic bag so that the root end is toward the opening.
Place the damp sponge into the bag so that it's not quite touching the shakuhachi and loosely fold over the end of
the bag (so that the sponge is not excessively squeezed in the bag).
Seal the bag with a rubber band wrapped around the bag/flute.
See an illustration of this here: http://www.yungflutes.com/log/archives/ … our_s.html
BTW: The 'spit rag' is called a 'tsuyutoshi'
eB
Last edited by edosan (2007-12-24 10:08:07)
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Mold:
1: Play your flute often, and wipe the bore well when done.
2. Change the moisture in the piece of sponge often (at least weekly).
3. Once every month or two, soak the sponge in a mild solution of bleach (say, a teaspoon or two in a pint of water),
then rinse it well, and re-use as before.
4. If you do happen to get mold, you can use that same solution and an old tooth brush to scrub is off the outside surface
of the root end, where it almost always appears. I have done this many times on flutes with no ill tffects, and this will
inhibit mold growth for a long time.
Some flutes seem to grow mold much more readily than others--two of mine, by Kobayashi, never do, for some reason.
eB
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Personally! I use a special olive oil from Sado Shima in Japan, this a extra virgin olive oil.
I don't need to put my shakuhachi in a moisture place when I come back France, whom the weather is especially dry.
I had no problem, buy this oil on Mejiro site.
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For me the route to take was quite simple since the main enemy to your bamboo is humidity.
Since all that was written about wet sponge and wetting the inside of the bag etc never really totally helped here in Montreal and people I know still had flutes crack on them even if they did all this I decided to take another route.
I put all my flutes in a plastic bag and then insert them in the hermetic bag that Monty Levenson sells and make sure to always put them back in the hard tube when I am finished.
I take all my flutes and make sure I oil them once a month with Tsubaki oil (Camellia). All my hard cases are stored in a wood drawer that has a plastic container with a wet sponge at all times and keep a humidity gage in the drawer and also another one in the house to compare humidity levels just to make sure.
Now for the house I have 2 humidifiers one in the room the flutes are in and the other in the main room so I basically keep my humidity all year round between now 45% to 50% and never had any issues since then.
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