Maintenance of your musical instrument is very important. In today’s post we tell you how you can leave your trumpet as new.
The care of musical instruments is very important in order to guarantee their greater durability; both in its finish and its interior.
The brilliance of an instrument is provided by its sound, although it can be lost if proper maintenance, care and cleaning are not followed. And, in the trumpets case, it is especially important.
Why is it important to clean your trumpet?
From the point of view of the cleaning and care of the instrument, wind players have the disadvantage that our instrument, in addition to needing careful cleaning of all the parts that make it up in its envelope, also needs special caution and consistency in the internal cleaning. And, although the guidelines to follow to achieve a good complete cleaning of our instrument cover all wind instruments, we are going to focus on maintaining the trumpet.
Inside and outside the trumpets, dirt can be generated for different reasons if proper maintenance is not carried out.
Wet saliva is generated in the trumpet pipes and needs to be cleaned as soon as the musician’s performance is finished to avoid drying out. Although most of the saliva comes out of the trumpet through the drain valve (used for the sole purpose of expelling that saliva or water generated by the condensation of the air emitted when playing) it is essential to clean the inside of the instrument after each use.
If the player does not clean the interior of the trumpet after each use, it is likely that over time it will cause an unwanted level of dry saliva inside the pipes, which in addition to being more expensive to clean, in time and in cost, it can affect the loudness of the instrument.
But this type of maintenance cleaning is not only important, in addition to the external surface cleaning that musicians usually perform to remove possible dirt generated by their use, but also for hygiene.
The fungi and bacteria inside the instruments are caused by the lack of cleaning of the instruments, and which also appear especially in hot and humid environments. This risk factor is very important to know in order to prevent and avoid future problems or injuries that may lead to the musician.
Clean a trumpet step by step
Do you already have your cleaning kit for trumpet and your trumpet ready to start? The first thing will be to disassemble the trumpet. For this, it is convenient to have a medium-sized container to be able to place all the loose pieces in the same place.
Once prepared, the process will begin by removing the three trumpet pumps (or elbows from the trumpet pumps) and leaving them in the container. The next step will be to unscrew the piston covers in order to remove them. First, the top covers will be removed, and lastly the bottom piston covers will be unscrewed.
At this time the trumpet body would be ready to move on to the next step, but before continuing it will be necessary to disassemble each piston. For this, the piston nipples will be unscrewed to be able to extract the internal parts of the piston and to separate the felt.
Felt is a laminated non-woven textile that due to its composition should not get wet. Since water will be used as the main cleaning agent in this cleaning process, these three pieces (one from each piston) will be removed and will not be part of the process until the trumpet is assembled.
The next step in cleaning the trumpet is to soak the trumpet pumps and pistons in the container that contains them with water and degreaser. It is very important that the water is warm. While these pieces are soaking, we will spend time cleaning the body of the trumpet.
To clean the trumpet body, fill the tub with warm water and add degreaser. The trumpet body will enter the bathtub and it is recommended to move it carefully so that water enters all the holes in it. Then, with the help of a cleaner (type Snake Helin 8010 cleaner), it will be introduced into the pipes of the trumpet to eliminate all the residues inside the trumpet.
As you have already seen, the trumpet is very easy to clean, so if you do not want it to affect the sound and you also worry about hygiene, give it a relaxing bath from time to time. Your trumpet will be happy and you will notice it and you will like your instrument, if possible, even more!