Author: Dan Shusta
Date: 2018-02-17 10:16
F.W.I.W....
I just did a little experiment with two, inexpensive, digital temp/humidity monitors. One is located in the hallway of my home and the other is located in my bedroom. I exhaled air from my mouth directly into both of them at a normal exhaling pace for approximately one minute while taking in air as fast as I could to keep the airflow outward as constant as possible. What I learned was quite interesting and baffling.
1. In the hallway, the humidity went from 22% to 99% while the temperature went from 68.5 to 72 degrees.
2. In my bedroom, the humidity went from 21% to 99% while the temperature went from 70 to 73 degrees.
Now, I felt that the humidity would, indeed, max out. However, what intrigued me was that the temperature went up only a few degrees.
Now, normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees. So, I figured my lungs were also at that same temperature. It appears that the air I breathed in quickly absorbed the moisture from the lungs while the temperature of the lungs had very little affect on the incoming ambient air temperature.
I don't know why, but I previously believed that I was breathing out air very close to body temperature. This little, highly unscientific experiment proved me wrong. I was breathing out air which was slightly higher than the ambient air temperature I was breathing in.
I have read over and over again on this BB that breathing out hot, moist air into a cold, wooden clarinet causes the inside to expand faster than the outside and the possibility of cracking increases.
What all of this boils down to is possibly this: If it's 60 degrees outside, you're probably not blowing 98 degree air into the instrument. You're probably blowing around 62 to 64 degree air into it. (Or, just a few degrees above ambient temperature.)
So, what about that incessant advice to "warm up your instrument when it's cold outside to prevent cracking"?
I'm beginning to believe that the wooden clarinet body is absorbing a very high humidity level compared to what the ambient level is and that is what is possibly producing cracks...sudden internal high level humidity compared to lower level outside humidity.
Something here is not adding up correctly for me and I'd appreciate it if somebody would enlighten me.
Again, F.W.I.W. and thank you.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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