Klarinet Archive - Posting 000460.txt from 2004/08

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Pad Saver useage
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 08:35:24 -0400


David Blumberg wrote,
>Hi Leila! Here's the thing about the pad
>savers (I don't use them at all, but there
>is a proper way to use em!):

>They are only (ONLY ) for a dry bore. Not
>a wet bore as using it on a wet bore is comparable
>to putting a wet t-shirt on for it to dry on
>your body (improper thoughts be gone!!!!! ;)

My impure thoughts diverge from your impure thoughts. I'm imagining this
wet bore emerging from the ocean. She spits out some water, wraps a towel
around herself, sticks a red Pad Saver in her left ear and a blue pad saver
in her right ear, and, with the Pad Savers waggling up and down with each
step, follows people up the beach and
talks-so-fast-the-words-all-run-together, while the people she's following
look at their watches and make excuses about the important things they have
to do right away, as they try to escape....

>So if the bore is dry, it will do it's job (supposedly)
>of expanding the fluff and wicking away the pad
>moisture.

Yes, if the bore is the one that's inside of a clarinet, then I think the
"Pad Wrecker" got that reputation because people did misunderstand and
leave it in a wet bore, where it trapped moisture against the pads,
whereupon the pads rotted and the case smelled like a bilge tank. I don't
ever use a Pad Saver correctly for its intended purpose, though, because it
seems to me that if the bore has been adequately swabbed, the pads dry
fastest when exposed to plain old air; and because using the Pad Saver
correctly doesn't prevent the little bits of fluff from coming off on the
register key tube and elsewhere. The exfoliated fluffy bits can cause the
clarinet to make funny noises, and eventually the fluff soaks up gunk that
accumulates. Fluff and gunk are the approved technical terms, I believe.

The flannel condom I described isn't meant to make the Pad Saver useful for
leaving in a wet bore (*clarinet* bore!), because wet flannel storage will
rot the pads even more efficiently than wet fluff does. All the flannel
accomplishes is to stop that shedding of fluffy bits, to allow the player
to swab the bore quickly from the bell end, during a rest that's too short
to remove the mouthpiece and use a pull-through cloth swab. Don't leave
the flannel-clad gizmo inside the clarinet when storing it in its case.

Btw, I notice that (in keeping with Minor Law of the Universe
#4,573,548,666 that states, "Lelia messes up everything she tries to do") I
left out part of the directions for making a flannel-covered bore swab.
One clarinet Pad Saver will swab approximately half of a fully assembled
clarinet. That's not terribly useful if what I want to do is insert the
gizmo from the bell up and reach the wettest tone holes up at top. For use
with the clarinet fully assembled, I mated two Pad Savers (to continue with
today's theme of unwholesome images), by prying the plastic tip off of one
of them and the plastic butt-end off of the other, and screwing the wire
cores together, so that two Pad Savers became one extra-long Pad Saver.
(It's okay that they're not the same color. Pad Savers have no prejudice
against miscegenation.) *Then* I sewed up the flannel condom, long enough
to cover them both while they do whatever they do in there.

And don't blame me if you follow those directions and then find a whole
litter of little Mouthpiece Savers in your clarinet case a few days later.
;-)

Lelia Loban (Leila is my evil twin...)
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban
America can do better: Kerry and Edwards in 2004!

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