How to Maintain Your Trumpet

Video Transcript

"There is no sense in having a brass instrument unless you are prepared to maintain it. It is much like a living pet, you have to be responsible. And maintenance means cleaning your instrument with warm soapy water and I recommend that you keep your mouth piece clean just for simple cleanliness purposes and for making sure there are no germs or bits of food. There are little wire brushes you can buy and they look somewhat like this. It is basically just a strand of sometimes coiled wire or heavy gage nylon thread that has a brush at the end. And you basically run it in and wiggle it around with your soapy water. There is also, if you have a trumpet and/or a baritone or anything with a tuning slides you can remove the tuning slide and take your brush and run it into the tube back and forth and it will come right around the bend of this little brush and it will feed right through and you basically work it back and forth taking out whatever bits of gunk that might be in there. As hard as you can try to keep your instrument clean there are still times when things get in there and there is nothing worse in an instrument to impede the air or the sound, than bits of matter."