The Complete Handbook of Clarinet Care Kits

Chapter 1: Understanding Clarinet Care Kits

A clarinet care kit is not a bundle of cloths and lubricants someone puts in a box to make a gift purchase easier. It is a targeted set of physical tools and chemicals designed to address a single, specific problem: the clarinet is an instrument under constant attack from its own player. Every time a clarinet is played, warm, moist air is blown into a tube made of wood or plastic, across pads made of felt and leather, and past metal keys that pivot on tiny screws. The moisture condenses on the bore, the pads absorb humidity, and the wood (if you play a wooden clarinet) expands and contracts with that moisture. A care kit is the engineering solution to that biological and physical reality.

To understand what a care kit does, you have to understand the problem it is solving. Consider a typical performance or rehearsal session. A musician plays for forty minutes. During that time, the air from the lungs, which is essentially saturated with moisture at body temperature, is passed through the instrument. This air is then cooled by the surrounding room temperature. On a cool day, that moisture condenses rapidly along the bore of the clarinet. This condensation pools in the tone holes, seeps into the tone holes and can run down into the pads. Without active management, this water does several damaging things. It causes the wooden bore to absorb water unevenly, leading to swelling and potential cracking. It