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Repair question, at the worst of times

Author: bluemoose
Date: 2008-12-10 03:44

Worst of times meaning the middle of finals/band dress rehearsal/juries week at college.

I apologize in advance for my shoddy knowledge of correct mechanical terminology. Generally I take the instrument to the repair shop and say "this (pad/key/cork/etc.) is wonky" and things get better.

I just had my R13 Bflat clarinet repaired over Thanksgiving break (replaced 3 pads, adjusted crows feet) and it was playing beautifully through this Sunday. I played an orchestra concert Saturday, subbed in a rehearsal Sunday morning, and took a break Monday to catch up on studying.
Tonight I go to practice and suddenly things are not going well. Throat F-sharp is weak, fuzzy, "gargle-y" like it wants to squeak but can't quite make it, and all around yucky. The F a half step below generally sounds better but is now all of a sudden super easy to overblow up to high C. The surrounding throat tones are also not so great but it's this new F/Fsharp development that's got me worried.

My theories are:

1. The newly-replaced pad that sits under the A key and closes with F-sharp has come loose and is leaking. Seems to be the easiest solution, but I can't feel or hear any air escaping, and when I maneuver the mouthpiece so I can play and push down that key with my finger to try to plug the leak for a second, nothing changes.

2. There's something wrong with the F thumb hole tubing. I've occasionally had problems with water creating an inner "bubble" that's generally fixed by just swabbing out the clarinet, but this time the warbly-ness won't go away and seems to be coming from this general area, as much as I can surmise. I have no idea what would cause there to be a problem here, but there might be.

3. The cork pad on my register key is leaking. Maybe?

4. My barrel is leaking or has finally kicked the bucket. I need to get the cork replaced on the top tenon because the barrel just barely doesn't fit snugly anymore, but maybe I've waited too long and things have gotten out of control. I don't think this is likely, because I tried it with my A clarinet barrel, which does fit, and the problem was still there.

5. I've inadvertently bent a key somewhere, somehow. Can't see it, but you never know.

6. I've irreparably damaged the instrument by leaving it in a cold car for 5 hours while I worked on Sunday. I otherwise never do this, but I weighed the risks of the clarinet being cold in the car against possible messiness/damage in an ice cream store, and the car won.

7. It's all in my head and I'm just having an end of semester panic. However, I don't think this is the case, since my A clarinet plays fine on the same mouthpiece, same reed.

Normally I'd just head over to the repair shop, or if I had no time, wait until my lesson and see what my teacher can do, but I have no more lessons until juries, and I have 5 hour rehearsals all the rest of the week leading up the the band/wind ensemble concert on Saturday, so my time is very limited. I have someone I can ask in rehearsal tomorrow to take a look at it, but for now any friendly advice or hypotheses will be much appreciated.

Murphy's Law is great, isn't it?

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