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Cleaning your instrument IS a big deal!

It's rare to find musicians making headline news except for the top 40 headliners. Many parents may be taken by surprise by the fact that brass instruments, if not cleaned properly, can cause your child to get colds and in extreme cases, worse issues. (Click on the heading of this post to go directly to the article).

While this case, in the article linked to below, is rare, it is important to maintain proper cleanliness of ones brass instrument.

Many of my students hear me repeat over and over again how they should clean their horns about once a month. How many actually do, quite frankly, is low. I can see it in their lessons when I glance at their slides growing with green goo.

There is a fear of the unknown and quite frankly it's a boring job. So, what I am offering to any of my students and their parents is a service for cleaning (and I mean cleaning well) their childs instrument. This is a time consuming event and will cost a mere $60 per horn. This is not a chemical cleaning, which should be done about once a year or every other year. I use mild bacteria soap and swab each slide, valve casing, leadpipe, and mouthpiece. Ideally, this should be done once a month, or once every other month at a minimum.

I will restate that this is not a hard job to do and I would advocate having your son or daughter do this, but I know kids! So, this is for all of you parents that know your kids as well and just need that piece of mind that their instrument is getting cleaned.

This cleaning is on the inside and is not noticeable on the outside, except for the disappearance of any green material noticeable on the outer slides. What it will do is make sure your child is breathing in as clean as possible air that will not add to health issues such as colds, flu, and the such. I'm not saying your child will not get sick. If I could do that I could retire a wealthy man!

A chemical cleaning usually runs about $135 for a trumpet. It would not be safe or adviseable to chemically clean a horn more than once a year. What I do is clean the instrument for you for $60 per trumpet. $100 for French Horns. Turn around time is usually one week, from lesson to next lesson or sooner if you are willing to drive to me to pick the instument up. Some locations I drive close to more than once a week and we could arrange a mutually agreeable location for an earlier turnaround time.

This offer is to my students only. I am VERY experienced in cleaning instruments and repairing them as well. I am not doing a repair service, but if I feel the instrument needs more than I can do with my own tools I will recommend the repair shop I trust the most, Osmun Music in Acton.

Lessons start next week!! I look forward to seeing you all again and having a happy, HEALTHY, coming school year!


http://www.gpb.org/news/2010/09/08/think-music-heals-trombone-player-begs-to-differ

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