 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-03-14 02:33
Ah, a synthetic bag ! My aunt played REAL pipes and finished off maintenance with honey. I always thought that tradition odd but in retrospect I think the honey may actually help guard against micro bugs.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-03-14 05:37
I played the bagpipes in a pipe band when I was in the R.A.F. We treated the bags internally with a viscous liquid called treacle. I'm not sure what the ingredients were, but it had a slightly antiseptic smell. I'm pretty sure the active ingredient was honey.
Tony F.
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2013-03-14 11:05
After playing I always clean my mouthpiece and Legere reed with Isopropyl alcohol every time.
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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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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-03-14 14:48
My mum told me about this the other day. I've seen and smelt sets of pipes that were absolutely rank as they were never left to air after playing - even the chanter reeds had turned black with mildew. Even though Gore-Tex bags may be better in some ways, they're worse in others - they have a big zip on them so there's no reason not to keep them closed while they're not being played.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-03-14 14:54
"He practices daily, but had not cleaned the instrument for at least 18 months because it was sounding so fine and he was preparing for an important performance. Bagpipes are notoriously tempermental and the smallest change in the environment can alter the tone, Shone said."
As if anyone could tell the difference in tone! I've heard this BS from brass players who won't clean their instruments as it allegedly changes the tone and they can't find the notes afterwards! Surely if an instrument is regularly cleaned, they'd have no problem.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2013-03-14 20:12)
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Author: Buster
Date: 2013-03-14 20:10
Interesting...
I always assumed any potential fatalities attributable to bagpipes would be on the listeners' end.
...learn something new everyday.
-Jason
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Author: Paula S
Date: 2013-03-14 21:39
Just laughed my socks off at Jason's comments. Have never played actual bagpipes but when my hands where way too small to try clarinet my friend's Dad gave me a chanter. I loved it and was careful to clean it with Zip on a regular basis. Whatever happened to Zip? Glad I never went for the tartan bagged full Monty!!!!
Post Edited (2013-03-14 21:42)
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2013-03-14 22:07
The great Louis Armstrong was a stickler about keeping his trumpet clean and I have read in many places that was one of the keys to his outstanding sound.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-03-14 22:23
If only other brass players would take a leaf out of his book.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Malcolm Martland
Date: 2013-03-20 16:15
I once bought a tenor saxophone from someone who had a bad cold!Despite buying a new mouthpiece I succumbed to the bug. My doctor, who also played in our jazz band, said "clearly a case of saxually transmitted disease!"
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Author: DougR
Date: 2013-03-21 03:13
Ya know, funny this thread came up. I do some work (non-musical) in a hospital environment where medical students are instructed, and they're absolutely rabid about hand-washing and/or Purell-ing (at least, the faculty is...for some students, it's still an acquired skill). Good thing, right? (because of all the hospital-borne infections, I mean.) Well, maybe not, since all the antibacterial soaps and wipes and sprays force bacteria to become superbacteria, no longer controllable by known antibiotics--they can mutate faster than us humans can come up with antibacterials to fight them.
Anyhoo, was in conversation the other day with a biochemist friend who was touting the virtues of 'thieves oil,' as an antibacterial--it's a mixture of essential oils (clove, cinnamon, lemon, etc), each having specific antibacterial properties that bacteria can't mutate against. There's a pediatrician in NJ who mixes his own version, uses it in his practice, and recommends it over Purell and even hand-washing, because bacteria can't mutate against it.
Here's the fun part: allegedly, thieves' oil was discovered during medieval plague times, and used by grave-robbers to keep from catching plague from the corpses' graves they were robbing.
My biochemist friend is all for letting his kids eat playground dirt, on the theory that if they're not exposed to bacteria, they can't develop an immunity to it either. Makes sense to me, I prefer a clean mouthpiece but as far as catching a cold from someone else's germy horn, that seems a far stretch to me. Truth is, one can't say for sure where one's "sick contact" came from, there could be so many we don't even know about.
As far as "sludge in the bocal," I remember that Columbia Records refused to let the cleaning staff into their old 30th Street studio, at all EVER, on the theory that removing even a micron of dirt would have changed the acoustics. I think one time they changed the curtains, which were literally disintegrating from age, and the staff had PTSD for six months afterwards.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2013-03-21 03:29
Bassoon bocals are in a class by themselves http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/lookup.php/Klarinet/1999/11/000892.txt.
When I was in 7th Grade Beginning Band, the director looked at a French horn that wasn't working right. He told the kid it was dirty and to drop it in a half-full bathtub for a good soak. The next day, the kid didn't have his horn. When the director asked him where it was, he said "It's in the bathtub like you told me." He never figured out that the horn had to come out of the tub sometime. ![[huh]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie11.gif)
Ken Shaw
Post Edited (2013-03-21 03:30)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2013-03-21 19:36
DougR wrote:
> ...each having specific antibacterial
> properties that bacteria can't mutate against. There's a
> pediatrician in NJ who mixes his own version, uses it in his
> practice, and recommends it over Purell and even hand-washing,
> because bacteria can't mutate against it.
>
Why can't they?
Karl
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Author: DougR
Date: 2013-03-22 14:06
Karl, a real dese-dem-and-dose sort of explanation (the only kind I'm capable of here) from a non-chemist--my understanding is that the essential oils in question, in the particular combination used, present bacteria with too many antibacterial "targets" to mutate against, whereas regular antibiotics, antibacterial soaps, Purell etc. are relatively more focused, or target a smaller spectrum of bacteria, and are thereby "easier" for bacteria to overcome via mutation. Sorta like, it's one thing if your upstairs neighbor practices drums every night at midnight, you know whose door to go pound on, but if ALL of your neighbors do it, you kind of don't know where to start.
I probably got that wrong in some important particular, but that's my understanding from my biochemist friend.
Here's a link to the pediatrician's website that I mentioned in the previous post. I'm sure it'll make a lot more sense than I just did.
http://www.thewholechild.us/integrative_/2012/09/diy-natural-hand-sanitizer-the-secret-of-thieves-.html
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Author: kdk
Date: 2013-03-22 14:59
DougR wrote:
> ...the essential oils in question, in the particular
> combination used, present bacteria with too many antibacterial
> "targets" to mutate against, whereas regular antibiotics,
> antibacterial soaps, Purell etc. are relatively more focused,
> or target a smaller spectrum of bacteria, and are thereby
> "easier" for bacteria to overcome via mutation. Sorta like,
> it's one thing if your upstairs neighbor practices drums every
> night at midnight, you know whose door to go pound on, but if
> ALL of your neighbors do it, you kind of don't know where to
> start.
>
I realize you aren't the expert in this, and I guess the expert's assertion that you've cited has to be given some credence. But Bacterial immunity to antibiotics of any kind by mutation isn't the result of the bacteria's consciously or even reflexively changing their DNA structures to combat the attacks on them. Mutation is a result of the survival of some bacteria (or any other organism) that is already resistant or immune to whatever is killing other similar organisms. The resistance is a random fluke of nature, but because that particular organism has survived, it can continue to reproduce, resulting in more organisms that are immune to the same threat. So resistant bacteria begin to take over because the non-resistant ones are killed and only the resistant ones are left to reproduce ("natural selection"). My guess from what you've said is that there are just so many bacteria killers in those combinations of oils that the likelihood that any bacterium is resistant to all of them is extremely remote.
Still, if such a microorganism did exist, it's frightening to think what the next scene would be.
I will check out the website when I have a chance later today.
Karl
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Author: moma4faith
Date: 2013-03-26 22:20
I've seen so many nasty clarinets in my time of teaching. I've actually been sickened to the point of passing out once. A kid with Blackreed and a cottage cheese mouthpiece. Just thinking about it...
What boggles my mind is why some kids don't simply swab out their horns and take their reeds off. It is simple, quick and clean.
At one school, the kids just won't buy and use swabs. I told them it is the equavilent of putting their mouths on a public toilet. Do you brush your teeth? Do you bathe? Then why don't you own a clarinet swab???
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Author: moma4faith
Date: 2013-03-26 22:24
I've had to take sanimist and spray it right into the boor, let it sit a moment and then wipe all the mess out with paper towels or rags. Then, spray a rag with sanimist and use a flute rod to swab it again, then oil the devil out of it and hope the sanimist didn't get on the pads.
For mouthpieces, I use a very soft brush and a wee bit of toothpaste to clean it, being careful not to abrade with the paste.
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