Klarinet Archive - Posting 000245.txt from 1995/05

From: "Lorne G. Buick" <lgbuick@-----.CA>
Subj: Re: swabs
Date: Sun, 7 May 1995 15:23:41 -0400

>I have assumed that the function of a swab is to draw the moisture out of the
>instrument rather than absorb it. One puts the swab through bell end first for
>this reason. I have found that silk whisks away droplets better than the
>cotton swab - and also leaves a higher shine in the bore. Go silk!
>
>On this same subject -- why do some oboists use turkey feathers as swabs?
>(sounds like the good beginning of a joke doesn't it!)
>
>Barb LonGair

Hmmmm... I've always assumed the opposite. It seems to me if the swab
doesn't absorb the water, it would probably just push most of it into the
toneholes. I've observed this occasionally with students using chamois
swabs (or rather those fuzzy cloth things they call chamois, but which are
obviously not- I call them ULFT's (Useless Little Fuzzy Things)). And on
the advice of the oboe player in the wind trio I play with, I now put it
through the barrel end first. I forget why he said this would work better,
but I started doing it just so he would stop telling me I was doing it the
wrong way. You know how oboe players are. ;-)

This same oboe player uses feathers (turkey, goose, whatever) or his silk
swab- I've never asked him why one or the other...

Hmm again. All this talk of swabs made me look in my drawer of clarinet
stuff and I found a nice BG bass clarinet swab, made of some kind of cloth
that looks like chamois. The label bears the wonderful description "lint-
free and non- fluffling". :-)

-------------lgb Lorne G. Buick
__@-----.ca>
_`<,_
Liden