02/09/2022
'TIS THE SEASON FOR CRACKS
Having your clarinet crack is a difficult, frustrating, and scary situation, but before you yell at your repair technician or demand your money back from the person who sold it to you, know that it’s not the end of the world. The good news is, once the crack is repaired, if repaired well, the tone of the clarinet may not be affected at all (in some cases, it is improved!).
Depending on where you are living, now is the season for cracking. Cracking happens most often when there is a rapid change in temperature or humidity. Any time the outside of the clarinet is colder or drier than the inside, it might crack. For example, going from a dry, heated environment like most houses during the winter, to being blown into by warm, moist air. A final example would be taking a warm instrument immediately out into winter weather in a poorly insulated case. In all three examples, the inside of the instrument is expanded, while the outside of the instrument is contracted, and it cracks to relieve that pressure. The most common place for clarinets to crack is where the wood is already weakened, like where holes are drilled through it. Check between throat G # and A, as well as between the top two side/trill keys. Look closely, a crack can be thin as a hair, or may resemble the wood grain. Anything that looks at all suspicious should be checked out by a qualified repair technician. Sometimes, it really is just wood grain.
As a player and a technician, I am obsessive/paranoid about my clarinets cracking. The following are the steps I take to avoid cracking.
If the instrument is cold, I warm it with my hands or my armpits for several minutes before I play, especially the upper joint and barrel. If it is very cold (like I just walked outside with it on my back in -15° Wisconsin weather), I will leave it with the case closed for an hour, then open for another hour to let it gradually warm up to room temperature before I even touch it with my hands. Like I said, cracking is caused by rapid changes. Even in a worst-case scenario, a clarinet that was shipped to me came off the FedEx van feeling every bit as cold as the 1° air outside, it was crack-free after a night inside with the case closed.
Use humidifiers or orange peels CONSTANTLY during the winter months. If they look even slightly dry, re-wet/replace them. I saturate mine, then wrap them around my fingers to wring them out, then wipe off any excess. They can touch the outside of the instrument, but never put them inside the bore (again, this would cause the inside to expand while the outside stays dry). I sell pre-made humidifiers, so PM me if you need some! In the meantime, simply stuffing a clean piece of sponge into a pill bottle with holes drilled in it would suffice. I go as far as to put a hygrometer (dial humidity gauge) from a cigar shop in the case and try to keep it above 60%.
If any of the rings are loose, or if a joint is suddenly very tight, STOP. This is a sign that the clarinet is not humidified enough. It creates an environment for cracking when the tenon is pushed into the thin, un-reinforced socket wall (you thought those rings were just for decoration, didn’t you?). If more humidity doesn’t tighten the rings, they may need to be tightened. Most repair technicians have equipment to do this, or they may add a tiny piece of paper as a shim if the ring is loose enough to remove (you can do this as well, if you feel up to it). But try humidity first! Over-tightening rings can cause other problems when the weather warms up again.
Swab religiously, like every 10 minutes. When I pack up, I dry off the tenon ends, and even use a q-tip to dry the inside of the socket ends. I also plug the end of the top joint and blow out while opening all of the keys one at a time. This shows me which ones have collected water. I repeat using a piece of cloth or cigarette paper under the offending pads to absorb water from the tone holes.
In the winter I use a room humidifier where I keep my instrument.
In spring and summer, you can remove the humidifiers as long as the rings stay tight and the clarinet is not in excessively air conditioned buildings all of the time. This is why I use the hygrometer; even in the summer a clarinet can dry out indoors, and I want to know when it does.
IF YOUR INSTRUMENT CRACKS:
-Trace the crack with a pencil. This will help the repair technician if it closes up (see below).
-If you can, avoid playing on it until you can get it fixed. If you don’t have access to a backup instrument, play on the cracked instrument as little as possible.
-You should still keep it as humidified as possible until then. You may notice the crack will shrink a bit as it gets more moisture. This is a good thing.
-Take the clarinet to a reputable repair technician as soon as possible.
-Being a natural substance, if wood wants to crack, it eventually will, no matter how careful you are (or if you play oboe🙃). You could be doing everything right, but something as simple as someone opening a door and a cool breeze coming through could cause a crack. It is an unfortunate hazard of our profession, but using the above strategies, I survived two winters in Chicago, and two more in New York City, with zero cracks.
