Transcripts
1. Welcome: Hi, guys, my name is ber Felix. Here today, I'm
here to talk about how to protect your guitar, your lovely instrument
on airplane. It's a travel guide
tips for musicians. I know that the airlines
have some guidelines, but most of the case, they will never follow
the correct guidelines. The specific details that
is written on the website. From this, I would like to share a few tricks that
I already test. I test all the tricks that I'm going to mention
in this course. And the best, the
easiest, the cheapest, the most expensive, but safest way to travel
with your instruments. Are you ready? So pack your guitar, and
let's get a start.
2. Travel case and prepare the instrument for flight: Most common way to fly with your instrument is by
checking it in a travel case. Thise case are usually
made of strong materials, often wood and the inside is pated to fit and
protect the instrument. Be sure that your instrument is inside and isn't
shifting around. Any movement could cause parts like the headstock or
neck to hit the wood, and it might break it. Since guitars are
on a standard size, it can be hard to find
a perfect case for you. Use some clothes to fill in the gaps and
prevent movement. I bought this case
for around 60 $65. The food is a very cheap
case. It's for guitar. The problem that
is not too thick, completely folded, very
soft. Let's put the guitar. You need to show
you the problem. Looks perfect, but we
have a few problems. We have a space between
the neck and the case. As you can see, you can see my fingers and we cannot travel with
instruments like this. So it's the first problem
that we need to fix. From this, you're going to
put a few clothes right here. Prefer clothes with good fabric. Cotton should be nice. Smooth. Okay. All
right, much better. As you can see, no, you
don't have that space. So it's too much.
Let's write this way. Yeah. Okay. Much better. So
the second step is, at least I like to do that. I put something
through the headstock. So this type of thing, avoid the headstock
to move around. I know it's guitar is just
one single instrument, but we need to be
careful as much as possible and avoid any kind
of damage to the instrument. Okay. Alright, looks my tar is not touching
this part of here, so we have another problem. So let's remove a few
clothes and check. Okay, now it's touching. Now, it looks perfect.
The second step is to put a few clothes
right here around sport. Just to give extra protection.
Lisa like you do that. I always works really
well. Simple like that. Then close case. Let's see if he's move around. Yeah, perfect. Let's
not move around. So it's good to travel. Also, before checking it, moisturize the wood
in the thinking board using lemon oil or guitar polish from brands like honey bow, Dunlop or planet wave. The instrument will be in the cargo baa with low humidity. I can draw out the wood
and cause some crackings. So moisturizing is essential. The first thing is put
some oil on the fretboard. So let you use these two
products right here from the p. In this case, this scale, I'm going to use this one. Right here, emo oil. Okay? If your agitar
is with maple wood, so it's a bright
scala clattcclaa. If aguita is like this example, as you can see on poo,
you cannot put this one. Okay? Be careful about that. Just because in foro, you can see some stain
or resin type of thing, and this is not proper for that. So just clean with
a piece of paper. You can put a little
bit on a paper. It's not necessary to dry, okay? The idea is stay a
little bit wet like this because the
airplane is very dry, so you can see the light. Okay, so it's a little bit wet. On the airplane, the cargo area, this is going to dry very fast. Another tip is losing the
strings a little bit. The wood may expand or shrink with the
temperature changes, and loosening the
strings will relieve the tension between
neck and bridge.
3. How to fit a guitar in a backpack: A few ways to take your
music instrument on a plane. I'll start with the
cheapest and safest way. The met only works for the instruments where you
can take the neck off. This is a stratocaster, and if you check, you can
unscrew this right here. Okay? So let's try. And in this situation, you need just to remove the
strings. Simple like that. Now, you have two parts. You separate the
instrument into two parts, the boy and the
neck, the fretboard. Then use bubble wrap or soft
clothes to warp the parts. For most telecasters,
jazz masters, mustang, and even stratocasters, you can fit the body inside a
backpack, a regular backpack. This is the first
tip. Carry the body, the main part with the
pickups in your backpack. So it's a safe way. Even if the plane is crowded, the airlines rarely ask you to check a smaller bag that
fits under your seat. The body. You can fit
on your backpack. This backpack is empty, okay. But most of the cases, it's important to put some clothes just to protect
the bar of the guitar. In that case, you can close. And take the body of the
guitar with you, okay? As we see. It's
completely closed. The other option is take a regular carrying
luggage, okay, the regular size
that you can go to any air company
and put the body. As you can see, fits perfectly. I doubt you remove
these two pits. If you analyze, I
think you can put two or three guitar
bars like this. Unfortunately, you cannot
put the fretboard. This is a problem. But we have a few other solutions
to the fretboard. So half of your
problem is solved. The neck can be a
little bit trick because it might stick
out of the backpack. Unfortunately, you cannot fit the fretboard in a
regular backpack. So as you can see, the head stock is
going to be off. Here you have two options. The first one is
use a big jacket, winter jacket to cover the neck. The second option is to bring the neck as a
carry on luggage. Of course, they will not fit in a regular
carry on luggage. From this, I advise you to
buy a specific bag that people use in lightning
lighting equipment or in architecture. So it costs around
20 $504 or euros. This type of bag is easy
to care and you can even pack some clothes and personal items together
with the neck. Since this bag does
not have wheels, it's unlike their line, we'll ask you to check it, even if the flight is crowded.
4. Bag, polite negotiation, and an extra seat: Way to bring your
instrument is a carry on in kind of soft bag. I don't love this option
too much because if the flight is overbooked or the airline staff
is not in a good mood, they may ask you
to check it since it's bigger than a
standard carry on luggage. Why some people bring
their instruments? This way, I prefer not to risk. If there is a problem, you
have to check it in a bag and not the safest way to
travel with an instrument. Once tried carrying my
instrument like this and on the flight
with a lot of people, there was no seating space
to put the instrument. They asked me to check it. I explained that it
was valuable when I needed to take the instrument
with me inside a cat. After a little bit of
polite discussion, they let me bring on board. I asked the flight
attendant to store the instrument in
the crew closet. They agree without
any kind of problem. So being polite helps
in this situation. You could also arrive
a little bit early and ask the gay team, if they let you board
in an early group. Explain you have
amusing instrument that low down the boarding. Most of the time they
want keep it simple, fast, easy boarding, without
any kind of problem. So problem they will
let to board early. But this is not guaranteed. Another option is to buy
a seat for an instrument. This is quite expensive since you'd be paying
a full price ticket. But the upside is that your instrument will be
all the time with you. So safely and warp it in. Advise you to do this thing. When you are flying with
a low cost in Europe, you have a Ryanair, ease jets, flights around ten, 20 euros, so it's the
safe and easiest way.
5. Soft case and airline guitar issues: Some people risk checking their
instruments in soft case, but I don't recommend it. Soft case are made of
fine, are quite fragile. They are fine for
car or bus trips, but not for airplanes where baggage isn't always
handling gently. It is best to be as careful
as possible to avoid damage. Sporting instruments is trick
because most of the case, the airlines do not
follow the guidelines. They have the guidelines, but it's not a common sense. A global rule to follow a specific guideline to take
care of your equipment. With valuable and personal
items like our instruments, we need to be very
careful, isn't it? And, unfortunately, airlines do not have the discussion in mind. They think that instrument
is just an instrument. It's just a piece of wood. Instrument is warm guitar, bass or any kind of instrument
that you can just buy. But sometimes we have
a personal feeling, nostalgia for an instrument. It's more than just
an instrument. It's part of a musician.
6. Final notes: This is the last
lesson of our course, I hope you enjoy all my tricks, all my details,
and now it's time to choose what is the best
for you and your instrument. Be sure to check my
profile on the platform. I had several nice
course waiting for you to help you to learn
how to play guitar, blues rock, guitar
legs, improvisation, several types of
tricks that probably will help you to go to
the next level in music. I'm Gabriel Felix and thank
you so much. Bye bye.
Gabriel Felix, Music Teacher
