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Breaking-in a new clarinet

Author: kawallace91
Date: 2010-06-12 02:04

I've had my new Buffet R-13 for almost 3 weeks now (the first 1 1/2 weeks I was trying it out with another R-13). My professor said for the first 2-4 weeks, I shouldn't play it for the full amount of time I would normally practice. She said at first to play it only 10 minutes a day and gave me a whole routine of swabbing it at certain intervals during that 10 minutes. I've been doing that until today, when I played it for about 15 minutes. I'm thinking of just gradually adding to the amount of time over the next week, and I'll probably try to play it more than once a day.

This probably sounds crazy to some people (I know it did to me since I didn't break in my E-11 at all when I got it a few years ago!), but my professor admits that she's overly cautious with this kind of thing. I want to be careful about it too since this was a huge investment, and I'd hate to see something horrible (like a crack!) happen to it! Does anyone have any advice or strategies for breaking in a new horn? I think the hardest thing has just been being patient! I just really want to be at the point where I can focus on my practicing without worrying about it!

I usually practice in two 20-30 minute chunks with a 5 minute break in between, and I try to do that 2 or 3 times a day (it's been much harder to discipline myself to do that since school's been out!). Is it reasonable to think that I could work my way up to practicing solely on the R-13 within this next week? Or at least half of every session? What about rehearsals? I play in a community band, and our rehearsals are 2 hours long. I feel like they might be too intense for the new horn right now, but maybe towards the end of the summer (have to get it used to rehearsals eventually!).

Maybe this was more of a venting session than a post, but if anyone does have any input, I'd really appreciate it! I'm hoping to meet with my professor again later this month to check in on everything, so I'll definitely know by then what to do.

Post Edited (2010-06-12 02:04)

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