Blackwood flute bitter taste

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Henricus
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Tell us something.: I've been playing a blackwood flute for a few years now, and have a question about it that I can't find answered in any existing posts.

Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Henricus »

I've been playing a blackwood flute for about 4 years now, and I love it to bits. However, for the last year or so, on and off, I've had a bit of a problem in the form of a bitter taste, and a slight numbness, that develops on the tip of my tongue. It's difficult to be sure, but it seems to originate from the bore, when air is taken in via the embouchure hole for the in-breaths. It doesn't seem to register immediately, but takes a few minutes of playing before I start to notice it. But then once it's there, it persists for a day or two, particularly the numbness. My initial worry was that it was caused by rancid oil - at the recommendation of the maker, I oil the bore with sweet almond oil every few weeks.

Having Googled the living daylights out of this, as well as getting in touch with the maker, I am re-assured to know that this (ie oil going rancid in a flute) does not seem to be a thing, whatever the arguments about whether oiling is necessary/desirable or not. However, in all this, I also haven't come across anyone else experiencing the same problem, which then worries me again.

The flute is played frequently, and dried off every time, so there is no oil residue on the surface of bore or the outer surface of the flute.

The problem comes and goes - I can go for weeks or months without it happening, and then it's back again - so I wonder if its appearance and disappearance could be related to changes in humidity.

Any help gratefully accepted, but I would particularly like to hear from someone else who has come across this, or at least heard tell of it.
jim stone
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by jim stone »

do you play another flute? Whistle? Does it happen there?
Henricus
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Tell us something.: I've been playing a blackwood flute for a few years now, and have a question about it that I can't find answered in any existing posts.

Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Henricus »

I played the whistle (various ones, metal, plastic, but no wood) for donkeys' years before I took up the flute. I also have a delrin flute that I originally bought to practice with a different embouchure, but this now comes in useful to alternate the days with my blackwood one. It seems to help if I reduce the amount of time I spend on it, and using the delrin one means I can still play every day. But, no, I don't have this problem with any other instrument.
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Sirchronique »

That’s very strange indeed. Maybe a Blackwood allergy? I would ask a doctor about that. Can you look inside the flute with a light and see if there’s any kind of mold or anything in there?

Almond oil does go rancid, by the way. Leave a jar open for a long time and then check it to see for yourself.
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Ben Shaffer »

If you are taking any Oral medicines or using Eye Drops of some kind, I would look up the medicines side effects. Various medicines can cause bitter or metallic taste Side effects. Just a thought :poke:
Last edited by Ben Shaffer on Tue Jan 24, 2023 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by an seanduine »

Ben Shaffer wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 8:07 pm If you are taking any Oral medicines or using Eye Drops of some kind, I would look up the medicines side effects. Various medicines can cause bitter or metallic Side effects. Just a thought :poke:
I would second Ben´s thought. I would also watch to see if this correlates with anything you may have eaten or drunk. I bring this up because you say it seems to come and go. It has been noted that some people will experience a bitter aftertaste after eating certain nuts. Others will not. Just another guess.
African Blackwood, Dalbergia Melanoxylon, is in the rosewood family. A small portion of the population will manifest sensitivity to this wood. It usually manifests as irritation of the lips and chin area. Sometimes the finger tips. Another fluteplayer who posts here, Loren, suffers this sensitivity.
I would also look at your use of oil. Oils can act as a vehicle to transfer some otherwise inert wood factors to your mouth and lips. I personally experienced this while turning some cocobolo. I had previouly not had any reaction to the Cocobolo, but when I used some oil as a lubricant while boring out some bores, I experienced a reaction to the wood.

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Henricus
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Tell us something.: I've been playing a blackwood flute for a few years now, and have a question about it that I can't find answered in any existing posts.

Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Henricus »

Thanks, all, for your contributions. I'm pretty sure this is related to the blackwood flute, rather than any medication or the like, and I have looked for correlation with food, drink and so on, to no avail. As with many intermittent problems, whether with software, machinery or the human body, it is difficult to isolate cause and effect, but this has been going on for a while now, and if there were any obvious patterns, I think I would have spotted them.

Blackwood sensitivity is my working theory, and it was first suggested by the maker of the flute. I think this fits with the way it manifested after some years, in that allergies often develop over time, through exposure. My main reason for posting here was that, if this was in fact a specific sensitivity, I couldn't believe that I was the only person in the world that had it, which made me worry that it might be something else. You have gone some way to addressing this, but it is odd, though, that in my case the effects are on the tongue, rather than the skin that is actually in contact with the wood. In my head, at least, this is because it is carried in the air coming up from the bore. (And in answer to another point, I always check the bore after drying, and especially after oiling, and if there was anything untoward going on in there, I would have spotted it.)

I take the point about the use of oil, but going back to the correlations again, if anything it seems less of a problem after I apply some oil. (I say 'seems', because so much of this is subjective - I have no way of measuring it, other than a binary 'yes it's there/no it isn't' and how long it persists after playing). Maybe the oil has the effect of inhibiting the release of whatever it is that triggers the reaction. But I didn't want to start oiling more frequently (probably 8 to 12 weeks at the moment), in case it was actually the root cause of the issue.
Henricus
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Tell us something.: I've been playing a blackwood flute for a few years now, and have a question about it that I can't find answered in any existing posts.

Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Henricus »

Something else I should maybe have mentioned in the original post: The flute doesn't actually smell 'off' in any way - it smells of wood and almond oil. The taste comes after a few minutes of playing, and seems more like an 'effect', rather than an actual taste.
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by PB+J »

Allergies to wood can develop over time. I used to work with cocobolo. I had not problem at all, the gradually began developing symptoms which rapidly got worse. Naso-respiratory issues and then a weird druggy lightheaded sensation that stayed around. I got the reaction even when working in a respirator mask. I stopped working with it, but not long ago sanded a very small piece and the symptoms started to show up right away. I certainly don't have an particular expertise beyond some examples of allergies developing in woodworking..
jim stone
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by jim stone »

I would stop playing that flute, lest an allergy is developing. Alternatively a strip of scotch tape or transparent packing tape, just below the embouchure hole, creasing the bottom, may give protection. But I would deal with this. OUnce of prevention, pound of cure.
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Jayhawk »

I'm with Jim - switch flutes...allergies like this tend to get worse and delrin, or boxwood (I've not heard of a boxwood allergy) can make a great flute. I was just jumping around between an antique cocus flute and my delrin Copley...and honestly they're both just great playing flutes.

If you want to put the money into it, a silver lip plate may help but why spend the money when the allergy could be caused simply be inhaling when playing? Or, you could get a delrin headjoint made for the flute...that's likely to help more than a lip plate.

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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Sirchronique »

If you love the flutes of that maker, maybe you can get a flute made of a different wood or material to see if it remedies the situation.

You’re definitely not the only flute player who has experienced a Blackwood allergy. In fact, the maker of my flute is allergic to it, which is one of several reasons I went with mopane, though she still offers blackwood flutes. Repeated exposure can definitely cause an allergy to be more likely to pop up eventually.

Maybe if you try mopane, boxwood, or delrin the problem will go away.
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by gbyrne »

The locus of discomfort (tip of tongue) is unusual. Unless you're one of those people who do the tongue tip near embouchure periodically to check you're still in the sweet spot for playing. The normal zone to react to the hardwood is the lower lip and upper chin area (in contact with the head joint hardwood). In my case it went quickly from a slight tingling over a few weeks to a significant rash/breakdown of the skin within 24 hours if I played for more than 5-10 minutes.

So my keyless Hamilton now has a headjoint with a silver lip-plate and my keyed Lejeune was ordered with a silver band. In both cases it is the silver part with which my lip/chin is in contact and I no longer have the problems playing. However if I revert even for a short time to play somebody's plain hardwood head-joint - I get the same tingling and breakdown of the upper skin layer from the allergy.

According to the aforementioned makers - the allergy isn't uncommon - perhaps as many as 5% of players develop the allergy over time. I was also told that, once the allergy makes itself active, there's no "going back" it will only get worse with stronger reactions for shorter exposures. In fact I was advised NOT to overdo exposure because there are cases where hardwood allergy becomes a straight contact allergy in sensitised areas (definitely don't want to have that).

The cause of the allergy is a naturally occurring insecticide in the hardwoods - Cosus, Blackwood and Ebony all cause it - the insecticide being a natural defence against burrowing insects.

There are three "fixes" - silver lip plate or band on wooden head joint, use of other tone-woods such as Boxwood for the head joint or the use of inert synthetic materials for the flue such as delrin or carbon fibre. The most recent addition to my flute bag... a lovely Eb with BOXWOOD head and Blackwood body does not cause any irritation. Boxwood isn't in the same family as the others.
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Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by gbyrne »

I had to reluctantly get rid of two wooden whistles for the same reason - A low-A in Indian Ebony and a D in Cocobolo. So I can confirm, in my case at least, that these were part of the family of tone-woods which cause the reaction.
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Tell us something.: I've been playing a blackwood flute for a few years now, and have a question about it that I can't find answered in any existing posts.

Re: Blackwood flute bitter taste

Post by Henricus »

Thanks so much, everyone, for taking the trouble to post all that helpful stuff. Things have maybe moved on a little in the few days since I first posted this, though, in that I stopped playing the blackwood flute, with the intention of confirming that it was the problem, and have only played the delrin one since then. And guess what? I've noticed the same thing happening with that flute now - not quite to the same extent, but I'm definitely getting the bitter taste.

I know I said in an earlier post that I hadn't experienced this with the delrin flute, but in truth there had been the merest hint of it, barely perceptible, which I dismissed as being a hangover from the blackwood one the day before. However, I would normally have my longer sessions with the blackwood one, and just use the delrin for 15-20 minutes, to work on whatever passages had been giving me problems. I struggle a bit with the delrin's embouchure and the breathing (probably for reasons related to each other), and so, as well as the shorter sessions, I also tend to stop each tune sooner (so just once or twice through, instead of three times, and not following on to the next one). But now that I'm away from my 'main' flute, I'm having longer goes on the delrin one, and I think this is maybe why I'm noticing the taste now.

Also bearing in mind I've had no problems with any irritation of my skin on the lips or chin, I'm thinking this looks like it's caused by something else - so maybe something else going on in my mouth that only becomes noticeable due to whatever my tongue is doing when I'm playing. For now, I'm going to stay off the blackwood one a bit longer, and see what transpires. I do suffer from other allergies (hay-fever, asthma, and so on) and assume that if anyone was going to be allergic to blackwood, it would be me.

When I asked the maker about this problem when it first appeared, he offered to send me a boxwood head-joint, but I (evidently) didn't take him up on it. I may well re-visit that decision if and when I establish it is the blackwood that is the issue.
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