Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2013-11-10 15:25
At least on kitchen cutting boards, bacteria survive on plastic but not on wood.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/10/health/wooden-cutting-boards-found-safer-than-plastic.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/dining/squeaky-clean-not-even-close.html
A junior high school player once complained to me that her clarinet had become impossible to play. I looked at the mouthpiece and saw it encrusted with a thick layer of dried gunk, which continued through the barrel and down to the register vent. She had been putting it in the case without swabbing or even removing the reed.
I dropped the mouthpiece and barrel into warm soapy water, scrubbed out the top joint bore with a soapy bottle brush and then cleaned up the barrel and mouthpiece. I had to use my pocket knife and a screwdriver, followed with the screwdriver wrapped in cloth, to get it all off. (Fortunately, it was a plastic instrument and mouthpiece.) Once everything was dry, and I had replaced the encrusted reed, it played fine.
This happened around 1990, but you don't forget a sight like that.
Kitchen towels accumulate bacteria at a tremendous rate. Swabs undoubtedly do the same. Ideally, they should be run through the washing machine, or thoroughly hand-washed, but the easiest way is probably to take them into the shower with you once a week, soap them up thoroughly, rinse and hang them up to dry.
As a matter of behavior, I doubt that most people wash their swabs regularly. But so long as the bore gets thoroughly dry, the anti-bacterial properties of wood should take care of problems. I'd be particularly careful with plastic clarinets, though. I don't know about hard rubber mouthpieces, but I always make sure mine is thoroughly clean and dry before I put it away.
Bassoonists are probably worse.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040214170201/http://www.corkpad.com/dont.html
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/lookup.php/Klarinet/1999/11/000892.txt
And bagpipes may be the worst of all. http://www.nbcnews.com/health/fungus-infested-bagpipes-sicken-lifelong-player-78-1C8845084?franchiseSlug=healthmain
Ken Shaw
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The Clarinet BBoard
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