Hi, I’m Ariana, woodwind performer and instructor. Today, we’re talking about clarinet basics and to end our session, I would like to talk about how to take care of the instrument and how to pack it up.
So, first off, you’re going to take the reed off the mouthpiece. If you leave the reed on the mouthpiece, it allows for warping, and therefore it doesn’t play as well. It also, there’s a higher chance it’s going to crack. So, when you’re buying reed, you want to buy, may be a reed cover, sometimes the reed will come in their own in their individual cases. You know, put it away, keep it safe. Secondly, you always want to put the mouthpiece cap on the mouthpiece. Mouthpieces are very expensive and if you drop them, they shatter very easily. So you put the mouthpiece cap on, take it off, put it in the case.
Next, you want to take the cleaning cloth that probably came with your instrument, if not, they can be purchased at music stores. Turn the instrument over, run the cloth through, the cleaning cloth can get out any extra moisture left over from playing and is going to help the pads because the pads of the instrument get damaged by water.
Once you’ve cleaned it out, you want to always put it away in the case, the case will help prevent dust from accumulating in the instrument, also if you have any small children or animals, particularly dogs would like to chew on instruments and we don’t want any of that to happen.
So, now that you’ve packed up, I hope you’re having a good time with the clarinet. If it doesn’t come easy, don’t worry, it’s not always the easiest thing to do but just keep trying, have fun with it. You can always take a couple of lessons and just keep going, have fun.
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