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Re: Disinfect Everything?

Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2013-03-14 14:10

My elementary school band teacher used to do inspections now and then. The bassoon bocals were the worst, but the kids who never took their reeds off their clarinet mouthpieces grew some disgusting gunk in there. It probably didn't improve their playing. The dried-out results of that neglect are a nuisance to clean out of flea-market clarinets.

I don't do a whole elaborate disinfecting routine with chemicals. It's just not necessary for a person with a normal immune system. Drenching with disinfectants means any germs that survive on that surface can breed super-bugs. Not good.

Not good to turn the clarinet into a musical lab culture, either, of course. I just take the mouthpiece off the instrument, take off the reed, rinse both the mouthpiece and the reed under the tap, then blot them on a towel, roll up a corner of the towel and blot where I can reach inside of the mouthpiece. Then I use one of those infamous "mouthpiece savers" to do a better job of blotting inside the mouthpiece (but then I remove the "mouthpiece saver" so it won't prevent the mouthpiece from drying). I store whatever mouthpieces and reeds I've just used in a little box with a screen top so they'll thoroughly air-dry before I put them away in an instrument case. And of course I swab the clarinet. Seems to work.

Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.

Post Edited (2013-03-14 17:30)

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Disinfect Everything? new

Ken Shaw

2013-03-14 01:18