care of instruments
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sankar
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 18 Mar 2010, 19:12
care of instruments
How are musical instruments like flute, nadhaswaram etc., are cleaned of salival contamination, how are these and laya instruments protected from atmospheric moisture,heat etc., when packed between use ?
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uday_shankar
- Posts: 1475
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:37
Re: care of instruments
There is no "salival contamination" in the flute and mostly only the reed in the case of the nadhaswaram.
Most flutists are quite comfortable trying out each-other's instruments briefly after a cursory wipe of the blowing area. Even this is just a knee-jerk reaction to a built-in phobia about "yecchal". No saliva actually gets to the blow hole. The dampness that you feel in your breath, whether by examining the insides of a balloon that's you just blew and exhausted, the flute that you just blew, or a bunched up piece of cloth to warm up you bruised eye, it's all moisture from your body. You breathe out a lot of moisture every time you exhale and it is the single biggest cause of dehydration at high altitudes and dry climates.
As for nagasvaram, I'm not a nagasvaram player but I've tried it and except for the lip contact of the detachable reed itself, which does get a lot of saliva, very little saliva gets into the body of the instrument. Nagasvaram players use the needle-like thing (made of ivory in the old days) to periodically clear the reed of saliva, betel leave particles, etc
.
Most flutists are quite comfortable trying out each-other's instruments briefly after a cursory wipe of the blowing area. Even this is just a knee-jerk reaction to a built-in phobia about "yecchal". No saliva actually gets to the blow hole. The dampness that you feel in your breath, whether by examining the insides of a balloon that's you just blew and exhausted, the flute that you just blew, or a bunched up piece of cloth to warm up you bruised eye, it's all moisture from your body. You breathe out a lot of moisture every time you exhale and it is the single biggest cause of dehydration at high altitudes and dry climates.
As for nagasvaram, I'm not a nagasvaram player but I've tried it and except for the lip contact of the detachable reed itself, which does get a lot of saliva, very little saliva gets into the body of the instrument. Nagasvaram players use the needle-like thing (made of ivory in the old days) to periodically clear the reed of saliva, betel leave particles, etc
.