My flute has a new little friend.

It's a second hand yamaha, with a metal headjoint and resin body.

The headjoint is fine to clean out.

I usually pull my cleaning rod right the way through my flute body, and make sure it won't get stuck.

But the end of my piccolo body (not where the headjoint goes) has a tiny hole.

I can get the rod and the tiny handkerchief in the headjoint end, and swab it out. But the shop owner said that you shouldn't pull it right through.

So how do you clean the foot end? Do you put it in one end, then the other? When I tried putting it in the foot end, black stuff went on the handkerchief, and it wouldn't go in easily, so I was scared to.

Or should I leave the foot end, and just do the top?

My picc has a yam YPC32 body - which I assume is the one you've got.

What I've just quoted from your post is what I do with mine - although this may not be entirelt 'correct'. The black stuff suggests that the previous owner maybe didn't clean it. I assume you're using a picc rod and nor you're flute one.

Yup, it's a weeny little silver thing

Thanks for the help. When I first got my flute (second hand) whenever I cleaned it black stuff came out but has gone now.

I thought maybe the black stuff could be important, like cork grease or something.

You should only need cork grease on the cork on the outside of the top of the body. Mine very rarely needs any to be put on.

Enjoy you're piccolo. It's best to warm up your embouchure on the flute first, especially the top register. If you do picc straight off before you've warmed up you won't get as good a sound and your embouchure will tire faster. Do be surprised if you find the picc more tiring than the flute, especially to start with.

Okey doke, thanks again. I'll take all the advice on board

One quick question, out of interest, whereabouts do you have your thumb on the right hand when you play the flute?

Underneath the f key? Or to the side of the f key, nearest to you? Does the flute rest on the side of the thumb, or the pad, or does the thumb just push against the side of the flute?

On the flute, I have my RH thumb on the side. I have it straight with a slight cuve outwards. It kind of sits near the key above the F key. The bit of my thumb that's opposite my thumbnail is what I have against the flute, not sure whether it pushes or not (I'm not quite sure how to describe what I do ). I also have my headjoint turned in more than a lot of people and have the rods higher. This is how my flute balances best and how it plays best for me - but everyone's different with this kind of thing.

Are you looking at changing your flute hold?

Yeah. My thumbs are double jointed, so my teacher was worried that I wasn't holding it properly, and I'm really not on the right hand, my hand sort of caves in around the flute, and my wrist bends backwards

She didn't really know what I was doing (she's blind), so we went up to this amazing flute shop today, where I got the picc, and one of the shopowners who is also double jointed talked to me about how to hold it. (He's a brilliant flautist and teacher)

He said there should be three points where you hold it, it should be supported on the chin, then push towards you with the lower part of your left index finger, and push away with your right thumb- and this would keep it steady, especially when playing c#

And he said it didn't matter that the thumb bend backwards, because it should push on the side of the flute, under the f key. And he stuck a sticker where my thumb should touch, to remind me. And that my fingers should be straight-ish with a little curve, so the pads touch the keys.

Now I've got it home, it's speeded up my fingers, and helped my wrist. But my little finger really really hurts when I do it, so although it looks right, it hurts after a while.

I just wanted some extra opinions on what everyone else does

This basically sounds like what I do. I'm not sure if I push with my thumb or not because I haven't thought about it - and it's too late for me to get my flute out to play now. I don't have any problems with my little finger hurting, though.

Do you know what bit of your little finger is hurting? The most likely explanations are that it now needs to stretch slighty more or that you're puttung too much pressure on it - and these would hurt in different places.

I think it's having to stretch more. I keep playing a D in a piece, and then after that forgetting to put the little finger back down and it ends up hovering because it feels far away. Then I force it back down, and it has to be completely straight to reach the key, so is hard to shift to the C keys.

Ah well, I'll figure it out somehow. Just wondered how others played it, so thanks

Hi Bobziekins

About the pain in your finger, and your flute hold. I had similar pain when I re-started the flute a year or so ago, partly because I also have double-jointed fingers.

Andante-in-C sorted the problem for me - she got me to try a headjoint alignment called "modified Rockstro". Have a search on these boards for the details of it.

Basically, you turn the headjoint so that the nearest edge of the mouthpiece hole is lined up with the rods on the body. Having done that, you hold the flute with the rods further upright than would be the case with the ordinary alignment. That results in your right hand coming up over the flute, which stops your wrist flopping back, and the pressure is off your little finger, which can then fall onto the Eb key rather than having to push it.

For me, the result was amazing, my hand didn't hurt and my tone improved dramatically, all in one go!

I have weird hands too My little fingers can't be straightened because the ligaments are too tight, so I have the opposite problem - my finger is always bent. The way I got round this was to shift my right hand every so slightly lower down the flute (towards the footjoint) so that I wasn't having to stretch too much to reach the c and c# keys and that got rid of the "pulling" sensation, which was actually quite painful after a while! I;m not sure if this actually makes any sense but maybe you could try just shifting your right hand down a tiny fraction? Obviously you'd still be covering the keys with your fingers, but your thumb would be slightly more stretched than your pinky. Hmm - hope this was sort of helpful

I use a silk oboe pull through STRIP not a square :-) goes through no problem, was recommended by the WW shop. it is long enough to drop through and has a small metel end to weight it down and a none metal end and if you do have a problem just pull it back.

This actually sounds like what I was trying to describe last night. It was a little bit too late at night for explaining things clearly.

Oki-doke. I'll have a go.

I had a little play around on the flute last night, and managed to play a few things with right hand position, non-smiley embouchure, and with my chin up (I have a tendency to drop it which I never noticed until the shopowner pointed it out).

Then I got the piccolo out and managed to play a few scales, and a few pieces. (The low notes are really hard though! And it's hard to get long notes sounding nice too). Atm I can't get any higher than a top G (which is at a push)

Wanted to try something on the flute- went back to it, and I could hardly play anything! Hardly even got a note out of it It was actually kinda scary. Low notes were normal, but anything above d2 (I think it's called...) was near to impossible!

try playing the high notes 3rd register on flute then move to picc this warms up embouchure apparently and makes playing the picc easier. the embouchure for picc does take some getting used to scales are always helpful

I've been playing a little glass piccollo a lot lately, and since going back to my flute, have found I can no longer sound C4. This rather scared the living daylights out of me, as I haven't had this problem in at least 6 years!

Panic not, however, I expect you were simply tired out.

Ok.

I'm trying to change my embouchure anyway, it's too smiley
And you can't play the piccolo with a smiley, so it becomes habit to play without one, I hope...

My glass picollo has a very different shape to flute, with a lip around the main hole so you have to blow into it a lot more. I think playing it has temporarily messed up my normal embouchure. Must practise normal flute more!

It is hard to switch between flute-type instruments, but you'll soon adjust! Good luck with the embouchure adjustment, but also remember to not get too hung up about it. That just makes you tense, and causes even more of a pickle.

Wow, glass piccolos sounds scary.

Thanks for the help