Owning and Caring for a Wooden Clarinet

Owning and Caring for a Wooden Clarinet

 This is a subject of interest to all clarinet players at some point in their musical progress and of vital understanding for teachers or those in a position of influence and guidance for younger players. I hope the following thoughts and suggestions will be found helpful.

Why purchase a wooden bodied instrument in the first place?

The short answer is that it should sound better and almost without exception be more rewarding to play than even the best of the plastic bodied models. However, to understand the reason for the recommendation (and the expense) of upgrading to a wooden instrument a few other points might be useful to bear in mind:

• Grenadilla (African Blackwood), the wood from which most instruments are made, grows very slowly and is in short supply, and the highest quality wood, with the greatest density of grain, is rarer still.
• The billets of wood (the rectangular blocks of wood cut to size from the tree trunk and limbs) are stored and dried for years and specially treated before being turned into instruments.
• While computer aided manufacture is now common for boring the billets, the cutting of tone holes and the making of keywork, much handwork for the fitting of keys, padding and finishing remains. The workers undertaking this work are specialists who have been highly trained for years.
• Most metal parts are silver plated to a high standard of finish and the turned wood is stained and polished.
• Even the least expensive model ranges carry these costs but corners are cut to help to hold down prices at the intermediate and upgrade levels. More expensive and professional quality top end instruments receive additional finishing by hand to balance resonance and playing response as well as careful final fine-tuning. Such instruments are quality control tested by experts prior to release for sale.
• Cases, accessories and mouthpieces supplied add to the overall cost.

Care tips and suggestions

Once you have invested in your lovely instrument you will hopefully wish to take good care of it. Developing a few good habits and taking on board a couple of tips will pay large dividends in long term performance and service.

• Handle the clarinet carefully during both assembly and disassembly. Apply cork grease whenever needed and when handling hold the instrument in such a way as to avoid damaging or bending the keywork.
• Warm up the instrument before playing by holding in your hands or placing under your arm for a time and never blow warm/hot air down the tube as this will risk stressing the wood.
• After playing use a swab to dry out the instrument including the recesses of the barrel and joints - moisture often accumulates here as well. Do this frequently during a practice session and draw the swab through slowly even allowing it to come to a stop for several seconds in the top joint to allow it to absorb the moisture within and not just 'spread it around'. There are many brands of swab available and using any are better than doing nothing but my favourite, for many reasons including the fact that I designed it, is the Dryer Swab available from Woodwind & Reed and Reeds Direct Cambridge ( www.wwr.co.uk/clarinet.../the-dryer-pull-through-bbaeb-clarinet.asp ) Follow the link to read about this product. It is pictured here: 

 

• If your wooden instrument is brand new you should consider being kind to it and playing it for short periods of time - say 30 minutes maximum at a session - then giving an hour or so to recover before playing again. Following this routine for a settling-in period of a month or so can avoid many future problems.
• If, despite your best efforts, a joint becomes stiff to assemble or remove then you may be experiencing a swelling of the wood due to moisture. A skilled repairer will be able to sort this problem out but if, in the meantime, you need to remove the offending joint then here is a tip: Hold the stuck parts firmly one in each hand and exert a rocking pressure in each of the four points of the compass to try to 'break' the tension of the wood-to-wood contact that has developed. Patiently repeat as necessary. You may have to leave the stuck portions for a period of time or even overnight to allow for drying out and then repeat the process. This almost always works but is of course best to avoid through regular use of your swab.
• It is not generally necessary to use bore oil on modern era instruments (post approx 1980), as their wood has usually been pressure treated. However, for older instruments or wherever the wood has begun to look 'dry' a light oiling with almond oil or a proprietary bore oil can be helpful. Do not apply in excess as the oil can run and will eat away at pads and attract lint.
• It is very good advice to have your clarinet checked over by a skilled repairer once a year as any instrument can suffer adjustment or regulation problems from the atmosphere, handling, compression and moisture whether used infrequently, regularly or heavily. 

Having said all the above it remains to add that playing and taking care of your wooden clarinet should be a great joy as well as a responsibility. The tips above should help you to increase the pleasure you experience from playing and reduce both the cost and frustration related to maintenance.


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The tips and comments above are the result of many years of providing help and advice, my personal interest and study, and the teaching that I have done during my career. I have many colleagues and teachers to thank for sharing their thoughts and suggestions on this and other topics. In addition I am indebted to Woodwind & Reed, Cambridge ( www.wwr.co.uk ) where, in the course of helping customers, many of these concepts have been refined and have proven helpful.

Thomas Dryer-Beers

Flute Regular Adjustment and Regulation

Regular Adjustment & Regulation - Flute

Proper handling, cleaning and assembly will minimise the occurrence of most problems but some regulations benefit from regular attention and are often required - even on new instruments recently supplied.

The basic tools required for adjustment are minimal but a good quality, small tip screwdriver is essential. A spring hook is desireable as well as is a 'pad slick' or small, flat blade knife.

1)   For me the most frequent regulation required is the screw adjustment under the LH 2^nd finger touch. This screw regulates the closure of the Bb key just above. Under a light finger pressure the Bb pad often stays slightly open and so the regulation screw must be adjusted to close the key. As a leak here will affect all notes below it frequently causes response problems and accidental 'overblowing' of harmonics.

2)   On split E mechanism flutes (most instruments in recent years) there is a similar adjustment required for proper closure of the G-key pads. The LH 3^rd finger key touch closes the ‘split’ portion of the G-key via an adjustment screw.

3)   The 1 and 1 or long fingering for Bb relies upon the correct amount of contact from the engagement of the RH 1^st finger key via its connection arm. This arm frequently becomes bent or damaged and also the cushioning felt or cork often compresses over time. Regulation is accomplished by bending the arm (raised via the touch of the LH A-key) usually downward until sufficient contact is made with the RH arm when the RH 1^st or 2^nd finger is engaged. This adjustment often requires several attempts to get right and is worth constant monitoring.

4)   The RH F# touch regulation is another adjustment often required. Closing the F#-key touch must hold down the correspondence keypad just below the G-keys and problems can be masked by other keys functioning well until F# is required on its own. Turn the regulation screw by small degrees until the F# keypad closes under a light finger pressure.

5)   On the footjoint the low C# and C are meant to be held down with just the touch of the low C-key without having to hold down the C#-key as well – but often this does not work properly. Usually the C# key has been bent through assembly handling or a small compression has occurred in the cushioning felt. To remedy this hold the C#-key pad down with your RH first finger and push up the C#-key touch piece with your LH thumb. In most cases a small movement is all that is required. If you go too far then to correct simply do a reverse bending of the C# key arm. Test by touching only the low C roller arm with a light pressure and tap to see if both pads are properly closing.

Finally it is worth checking that the headjoint cork is in the correct position. This often moves about due to unnecessary ‘twiddling’ of the headjoint crown, which pulls out the threaded screw and this the cork - out of position. Place the cleaning rod with the non-slotted end inside the headjoint to see if the inscribed line is centred on the embouchure hole. Do not try to remove the headjoint cork out the top of the headjoint as the tube is tapered. Instead reposition the cork with a combination of backing off of the crown a few turns and pushing the assembly in or winding the crown tighter to pull the assembly out a bit.

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The tips and comments above are the result of many years of providing help and advice, my personal interest and study, and the teaching that I have done during my career. I have many colleagues and teachers to thank for sharing their thoughts and suggestions on this and other topics. In addition I am indebted to Woodwind & Reed, Cambridge ( www.wwr.co.uk ) where, in the course of helping customers, many of these concepts have been refined and have proven helpful.

Thomas Dryer-Beers