Maintaining Your Clarinet at Home

How to care for your clarinet between professional tune-ups, plus tips about a few simple problems you can diagnose and repair at home.
From John Kirkner, repair technician at Keystone Music Repair in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
This video was created and uploaded in April, 2020, during the Coronavirus pandemic and resulting stay-at-home oders in Pennsylvania, when most repair shops (including mine) were closed and professional repair services weren't available to many people. I've left it up because these are great tips for maintainting your instrument any time!
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[@WalkOverHotCoal]

This is a rather comprehensive guide on checking for problems on a Clarinet.Regarding drying up moisture within the clarinet, I believe that it might not be sufficient to just drag a drying rag through the assembled unit. I noticed there is some moisture between the joints. I am not an expert on wooden clarinet. However, moisture left between the joints might not be good for the unit. I have always taken the whole unit apart and dry the barrels and the ends of them. I even put a piece of tissue under the pads to remove any trace of moisture. May be I am being too factitious?

[@KeystoneMusicRepair]

That's a great point, and something I should have mentioned in the video. I do the same, especially on wooden instruments where the end grain of the wood is exposed at the ends of the joints, and that can absorb a lot of moisture relative to the cross grain in the bore. On plastic instruments it's less of a concern (although you can get some buildup over time in the sockets). Keep doing what you're doing!

[@dafneserrato-perez1347]

how do i clean my clarinet if it has blue spots on the keys

[@KeystoneMusicRepair]

If the keys are silver that may be tarnish that could be polished by a technician after taking the instrument apart.