# Not safe for lunch...



## Lunasong

I've recently been reading on-line about maggots, etc in wind instruments...



> Recently many of our woodwinds have discovered maggots thriving in their mouth pieces.... (ewwww.) Has this ever happened to any of you? if so, what did you do about it?





> answer: Toss out reeds, clean mouthpieces very well, and keep them dry. Also, check cases and the storage room. Hopefully the pads are safe, but let everyone know that woodwinds have a lot of areas that promote maggot and bacteria growth due to lack of care.
> 
> Also, you can soak reeds in a half-listerine half water solution (use alcohol-free to reduce fumes) to prevent this (and to make reeds taste better)





> Haha, my band director once told me that when one of his students opened up her saxophone case for the first time in a good while, they looked at the neck and the mouthpiece and there were maggots crawling in them.
> 
> Then he said there was another time when they came back after Christmas break and there was a dead rat in one of he school sousaphones. It doesn't have a case, so it was easy for something to get in it.
> 
> Then this past year, I had a classmate that was eating while playing her clarinet, and I guess she had left her case open at some point, because when she opened it back up after about a month, there were cockroaches crawling around in it.





> I was at my local music store last night - a mom came in with her son's tenor mpc complaining that the reed wouldn't come off!!!! Can you see this one coming?
> 
> Her son had played that reed for more than a year without removing it. Needless to say, after it was pried off, bits of cane remained stuck to the mpc. The disgusting mess...
> 
> I can't continue.





> A friend of mine was teaching jr. high, and had a similar situation, except that when the reed came off ( it had to be removed because the student couldn't get any air to go through the m/p) it revealed a colony of maggots. Said friend lost his lunch.
> 
> One of the teachers here at U of North Florida actually calls this buildup "tone maggots." He doesn't loan his mouthpieces out very often because he's afraid they might come back clean, with all the "tone maggots" gone! Ugh.





> When I was in junior high school, many, many moon ago, I played a school horn which was stored in the band hall, and I kept my mouthpiece in my locker. One day when I took the mouthpiece out of the locker, a squishy plump earwig crawled out of it. Since that day I have washed my mouthpiece both before and after I play.





> A friend of mine was teaching jr. high, and had a similar situation, except that when the reed came off ( it had to be removed because the student couldn't get any air to go through the m/p) it revealed a colony of maggots. Said friend lost his lunch.





> Reminds me of grade school and junior high, where my band director would periodically hold mouthpiece checks. He would make all the clarinet and sax players remove their reeds and show him the back sides of the
> reeds and insides of the mouthpieces. When he found one lined with greeny-browny-yellowy slime,with one hand he would hold it up at arm's length for the entire band to see and with the other hand he would hold his nose, while shrieking "Bleagh! Yllggghhh! Feh! Feh! Feh!" and other noises of Horror Unspeakable at the top of his lungs (excellent lungs; although short, stout and not athletic-looking, he was a walking one-man-band who could play any wind instrument), to the great delight of the kids. Alas, his scheme backfired somewhat, because some of the boys started competing for the honor of the most disgusting mouthpiece. They got very, very good at it.





> I was teaching at a junior high school south of Dallas and had a female student with the absolute worst tone. Upon removal of the reed (which she had played as long as she had the horn) I found that the mouthpiece was almost entirely full of bright red LIPSTICK! There was a tiny hole letting air through. It took a while to get it all out but man, what a difference. I gave her some reeds and told her to wipe her lips before playing in band.
> She eventually moved to first chair that semester.





> After being out of town for a couple of weeks I assembled my horn to practice. I usually leave reeds on the mouthpiece, so before I warm up I saliva up the reed on the mouthpiece, then warm up. After letting the reed soak up the moisture I started playing and sounded very stuffy. A couple of seconds later I find my mouth full of FIRE ANTS. They apparently were fond of the cane but then quickly evacuated the premises when the reed started vibrating. I spit most of the ants out before they sung me, but a few managed to get me...





> When I was in junior high school, many, many moons ago, I played a school horn which was stored in the band hall, and I kept my mouthpiece in my locker. One day when I took the mouthpiece out of the locker, a squishy plump earwig crawled out of it. Since that day I have washed my mouthpiece both before and after I play.





> When we moved to our new house I packed my clarinet away in a brown moving box which I thought was thoroughly sealed. It took me a while to unpack everything... and since I don't play my clarinet as often as I used to it was one of the last things I unpacked. So when I finally opened up the case to look at the
> instrument... my jaw dropped in disgust. Little dried up maggot carcasses were inside the case. Not only had those little suckers invaded my precious instrument they had eaten away the cork. Of course I did not play the instrument that night, and took it the next day to get it cleaned and repaired. I realized later that the maggots may have invaded the box which was sitting out in the garage.





> I've heard horror stories from conductors about beginning clarinet players leaving the mouthpiece, barrel, and reed assembled all the time, and finding mold / gunk / maggots inside the horn as a result.





> One girl in my county left her reed on all the time and one day she couldn't play at all. When they finally pried the reed off (it was stuck on there pretty good) she had maggots living in her mouthpiece. Fair warning! You have to stick the thing in your mouth, so keep it clean.


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## Ukko

Jeez, thanks. I just finished supper.


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## Lunasong

NSFL or D.

edit: supper at 5:30? How old are you?


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## Ramako

I don't know whether to 'like' this or not. I have done so mostly because it is a fair time since I have eaten anything I think :lol:. It was certainly entertaining. My favourite is:



> A friend of mine was teaching jr. high, and had a similar situation, except that when the reed came off ( it had to be removed because the student couldn't get any air to go through the m/p) it revealed a colony of maggots. Said friend lost his lunch.


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## Head_case

Thanks Lunasong - you've made me squirm at the thought of playing anyone's instruments other than mine 

I guess students aren't the best people to care for their instruments. I take meticulous care of mine, maybe because I take them seriously. Like who eats sandwiches in between Bach's Partitas?!! 

I do drink coffee in between playing, but always carry a toothbrush and paste to clean straight away before playing. I guess that's just the way I was taught. Nowadays it wouldn't surprise me if young flutists learn to play and pick their nose during the glissandi techniques lol


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## Lunasong

> As a band director I come into contact with many mouthpieces, and always disinfect my hands promptly after practice. Mouthpieces can get bad , but it's the reeds that are a petri dish to some strange life forms. I'm sure if you put one under a microscope it would look like the locker in "Men in Black 2," full of extraterrestrials.





> As a repairer I have seen some of the more complex biological experiments of history inside the mouthpieces that come with school horns. I throw them in the bin, supply a new mouthpiece, and bill them. I have had few arguments when I show band committee people. Just ask them to put the mouthpieces in their own mouths, it soon shuts them up. School kids, and some adults, seem to eat immediately before, after and during playing. Women often use lipstick whilst playing, remember girls, nobody really ever died of dry lip syndrome. Soft drinks leave a curious film on reeds, in mouthpieces and down the guts of instruments, particularly saxophones. I wash all the mouthpieces I use weekly, wipe them down gently but don't pull swab through and I have got 20 years + from my alto and tenor mouthpieces and at least 15 from my clarinet mouthpieces. The maggot issue is probably myth, filthy mouthpieces are all too common.





> I actually did have a student a long time ago (when I was an undergrad) who had constant colds and runny nose...
> 
> I eventually looked in her mouthpiece and she had green fuzzy mold in it...guess that explains the illnesses.
> 
> I taught her that very day about cleaning mouthpieces out the proper way!





> I've had the same reed on since around 2000. Now I've got a really beautiful dirty sound, and it has the advantage that no-one asks to "have a blow" on my sax. The creamy slimy "tidemark" around where my lips come to on the mouthpiece puts them off.





> Several years ago I gave a bassoon clinic to a local school district for their bassoon students and band directors. One of the topics in my outline was to talk about the need to use a bocal brush to periodically clean out bassoon bocals.
> 
> I had two containers. One was filled with dishwashing detergent and hot water. The second container was a large Pyrex bowl with clear water. My plan was to first soak a bocal selected at random from one of the players in the hot, soapy water and then do the scrubbing into the bowl of clear water to hopefully show what might get scrubbed out of the bocal. I would then pass the bowl around so everyone could see what got scrubbed out.
> 
> When I put the brush in the corked end and started to push the brush into the bocal, a long white worm of puslike residue about five inches long oozed out of the reed end of the bocal. It was if I had squeezed good and hard on a full tube of toothpaste. Wow! My demonstration was a huge success. The girl who had been playing the bassoon ran out the room and her band director went as red as a beet. Needless to say, I made my point.


..........


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## Lunasong

Are you willing to have the inside of your instrument cultured?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129725678

Dr. Mark Metersky, a professor at the University of Connecticut Medical School's division of pulmonary and critical care, asked several professional musicians if he could culture the insides of their trombones and trumpets for a pilot study.

"Things plopped out," Metersky says. "It was disgusting. Imagine the worst thing you've found in your refrigerator in food that you've left for a few months, and that was coming out of these instruments."

Metersky stopped testing after 10 instruments, because they all were contaminated.

He grew a mold called fusarium, and a type of bacteria called a mycobacterium, sort of a cousin of tuberculosis.









Dr. Mark Metersky took this picture of what's living in Scott Bean's trombone. The pink rods are Mycobacterium chelonae-abscessus species organisms. The round blue things are cells from the mucus membranes of Bean's mouth.


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## Kopachris

That's disgusting. String instruments FTW.


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## elgar's ghost

Possibly the most interesting tales I've heard about what lurks in reed instruments since I read about Hawkwind's Nik Turner stuffing bags of drugs into the bell of his saxophone whenever there was a border crossing to be made.


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## Lunasong

> A few years ago a student of mine was struggling uncharacteristically during a lesson. After some discussion I decided he might need to clean his instrument out. The discussion went like this:
> 
> Teacher: "Your sound is real stuffy. When's the last time you cleaned your horn?"
> 
> Student: "Clean my horn? You're supposed to clean your horn?"
> 
> When I attempted to look through the mouthpipe, I couldn't see any light. He was a high school senior and had gotten the horn as a sixth grader.
> 
> You should have heard his sound ten minutes later…or better yet, his volume. He sounded like a foghorn. I'm surprised he had not given himself an aneurysm trying to blow through that horn. It turns out that blowing against all that resistance had really developed his ability to blow. From that time on the band director was constantly yelling at him to quit playing so loudly. The above story really happened.





> One of my former professors told me that twice in his life he has seen worms crawl out of a student's instrument. Neither of those times was I the student, by the way.





> Today I decided I wanted to play my clarinet. It's been in my closet with my book shelf, and there is no closet door (So it's like a cubby hole). So I take it out and I open my reed case. I saw something really small which I believe is a bug. It's see-through, and it has antennas. I only see one so I hope it's the only one. Does anyone know what this bug is? And how to get rid of them? By the way I'm not going to use the reed again, but I want to know what the bugs are if anyone knows.
> Also the bug is as small as a flea, and it's see through. It might be book lice which I hope it's not.





> So my bass clarinet mouth piece is a little more than raunchy! HOLY cow I didn't even notice but you know how calcium builds up on the top half of the mouth piece. Weeeeeeeeeell I play so many different instruments I didn't really watch. So my mouth piece is green!YES It's green. OMG I have been scraping it now trying to get it off and to make it worse the plastic is now permanently the most disgusting looking thing ever!
> UGH ewwwww,ewwwwwww,ewwwwwwww!!!


..........


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## Lunasong

More culture...

Researchers at Oklahoma State University bravely examined 13 instruments that belonged to a high school band. Six of the instruments had been played the previous week and seven hadn't been played in a month. Swabs were taken of 117 different sites on the instruments, including the mouthpieces, internal chambers and even the carrying cases.

The results scored high on the yuck factor. The researchers found 442 different bacteria, 58 types of mold and 19 types of yeast. Many of the bacteria were species of Staphylococcus, which can cause staph infection. Most of the bacteria can cause illness, the authors noted. Mold spores can contribute to the development of asthma. Even the instruments that had not been played recently harbored germs galore.

"Furthermore, this study also found that many of these microbes are highly resistant to some or most of the antibiotics normally used in general practice, including methicillin," the authors wrote.

The study showed that reeds and mouthpiece ends were more contaminated than bell ends, but even the midpoints of the instruments and bell ends contained plenty of toxins. Woodwinds tended to be germier than brass instruments. Even the woodwind cases were more contaminated than the brass cases. Clarinets were the filthiest instruments. The germs in the instruments can be easily transferred to the students' hands, which in turn could contaminate other instruments, other students or the band room, the researchers said.


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## Jaws

But surely a nice bit of biscuit stuck in an oboe reed improves the sound of a beginner, especially if the reed is completely blocked?


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## Head_case

Bass recorder FTW!










Removable,sterilisable bocal. Just dip in alcohol after use


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## Head_case

> The study showed that reeds and mouthpiece ends were more contaminated than bell ends, but even the midpoints of the instruments and bell ends contained plenty of toxins. Woodwinds tended to be germier than brass instruments. Even the woodwind cases were more contaminated than the brass cases. Clarinets were the filthiest instruments. The germs in the instruments can be easily transferred to the students' hands, which in turn could contaminate other instruments, other students or the band room, the researchers said.


...and the moral of the story is for us to watch our mouths when cleaning our bell ends..>?!


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## Lunasong

^^After cleaning MY bell end, I always wash my hands! :lol:


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## Jaws

Or always buy a plastic clarinet and put the whole thing in the dishwasher after use.


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## Lunasong

Effects of raw brass:



> When I spent the summer at Busch Gardens in VA years ago, I played on a raw brass mouthpiece. About 2-3 weeks into the summer I developed a tightness in my chest and would have headaches almost every day. At first I thought I was playing too hard but when a friend suggested I get my mouthpiece plated, I did. The symptoms vanished after 2 days. Just be careful.





> Brass is very soft, it is quite porous, compared to many metals, and is borderline toxic, in contact with skin and from swallowing saliva floating around in your mouth when u play.
> Dirt remains on the soft surface and is absorbed.
> The angles on the inside, high point and outside edge also penetrate the lip surface as your chops move when playing.
> Don't play on brass.





> Most mouthpieces are made using modern computer controlled machines and the lead content makes the brass more machinable and facilitates a better surface finish due to its lubricating properties.
> The lead content is around 2% which is very significant.





> I played on a raw brass mouthpiece for a while in 1970 and promptly developed a very irritated lip area where the mouthpiece was placed. To this day, I have scar tissue where that irritation was. I found out later that the brass used to make brass instrument mouthpieces has a considerable lead content which makes it easier to cut and form the mouthpiece. Some people can play with a raw brass rim. I, however, would not recommend it.





> Lead in old raw brass is toxic. Docs say it affects your brain.





> Is the Brain a necessary component of trumpet playing?












_It was a long weekend of playing, as evidenced by a green-stained right hand in the picture below.

Have you ever wondered why this happens? Why, on un-laquered horns, do some people get the notorious "green hand?"

Explained in a nutshell, this stuff is a byproduct of prolonged human contact on untreated brass. It originates from a chemical reaction - between the brass, and your hand sweat and breath condensation.

Hand perspiration and breath condensation contain water, salt, and acids. This set of ingredients causes the zinc in the brass to oxidize, which produces the green stuff.

The level of oxidization can vary from person-to-person - running the gambit from little or no reaction, to coffee-drinkers like myself who are cursed by heavy green residue._
http://hornmatters.com/2012/10/why-does-my-hand-turn-green/


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## Lunasong

> Previously I always noticed some dried sticky goo on the keys of my saxes and I thought that could be caused by my own drool. Besides being disgusting, the goo actually sticks the furry lining of the case onto the sax hinges causing the keys to lose responsiveness.





> Ok, this is nasty. My tenor and alto have like mineral deposits in them now. We aren't talking GOLD or anything, but like…….yuck stuff.





> I have (oboe) students whose reeds look moldy. Whether what I'm seeing is actually mold I haven't a clue. It could be something else … like bacteria and yeasts...
> Um … YUCK.





> I can definitely vouch for the disgusting-ness of reeds. In biology class a few years ago we were told to go swab things around school, label them, and test them in petri dishes for bacteria. I tested a reed about two months old that I no longer used (if I remember correctly it had a crack) but hadn't taken out of my case yet. It had no outward signs of mold, but the bacteria that grew on the dish was as bad as any of the door-knobs or water fountains the other kids swabbed.





> You wouldn't believe the stuff I see coming out of reeds. Or … well … maybe you would! Sometimes I have to hand a reed back to a student and say, "I can't even look at this, much less touch it." It's pretty frightening, what they are willing to put in their mouths! Ack!





> I have had students come to me who have never cleaned their instruments and have things growing in their horns. Nasty!





> Brass players have no problem just emptying their spit valves wherever they happen to be. But for maximum grossness: In marching band one year, we had to "play to the box" which means we had to point the horns up at a 45 degree angle, and all the spit ran back out the mouthpiece into my face. It was my spit, but it was still DISGUSTING.





> My band director was big on trying different instruments. I'm sure that explained a lot of illnesses going around.





> I recently had the urge to take out one of the clarinets that has been sitting in the closet for a while and play that for a change.
> Well, it's basically covered with mold! Disgusting!!





> I've just swallowed a clarinet reed...
> Will I be OK? Or should I go to the ER?
> I was changing it and had it in my mouth.......then I got spooked and bit it in half.


..........

Pictures too gross to post.


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## AndyS

I was literally about to go and get my trombone out the folks loft where it has been neglected for a very long while... This was not the right time to read this thread! I'm terrified as to what I may find


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## Lunasong

Do it and let us know!

I have a sad trombone story to relate. We bought a new trombone with F-attachment for my older son when he was in band because he was demonstrating motivation and improvement (it seems to be an arms race among trombone players to move up to the F-attach). He gave up music after his first year of college and the trombone went in the closet. Then my younger son wanted to play it for jazz band. Opened the case and the finish was all pitted. Our repair person, whom I trust, said that it was a bad finish job from the factory and would be too expensive to make pretty. The trombone sounds fine, just looks like *@$#.

After reading some of the above and looking at the pictures too gross to post, I did clean up my clarinet mouthpiece with hydrogen peroxide.

We have a old single F horn which we leave laying around on the sofa in the living room like a pillow. It came with a case that is covered in fine mold. I cleaned it but the mold came back. I have the case isolated in the basement. The horn is just fine.


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## elgar's ghost

Can we have more worm, bug and bacteria anecdotes, please, Lunasong - they've been really entertaining in a gruesome sort of way.


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## AndyS

It was actually ok...although like you, the lacquer work is pretty goosed. I'm not that bothered, it was just a cheap one for when I was younger and learning to play, I ordered a new one this morning - one that I am adamant I will take care of as this one wasn't that cheap!

After reading this I'm making sure that I clean it properly regularly too


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## Jaws

Lunasong said:


> Effects of raw brass:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _It was a long weekend of playing, as evidenced by a green-stained right hand in the picture below.
> 
> Have you ever wondered why this happens? Why, on un-laquered horns, do some people get the notorious "green hand?"
> 
> Explained in a nutshell, this stuff is a byproduct of prolonged human contact on untreated brass. It originates from a chemical reaction - between the brass, and your hand sweat and breath condensation.
> 
> Hand perspiration and breath condensation contain water, salt, and acids. This set of ingredients causes the zinc in the brass to oxidize, which produces the green stuff.
> 
> The level of oxidization can vary from person-to-person - running the gambit from little or no reaction, to coffee-drinkers like myself who are cursed by heavy green residue._
> http://hornmatters.com/2012/10/why-does-my-hand-turn-green/


Professional horn players often have the bells of their horns patched.

Heard a story recently about a bagpipe player who colour codes the reeds. (This has nothing to do with the colour of the bindings and much more to do with length of use/ time in the reed box.)


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## Lunasong

elgars ghost said:


> Can we have more worm, bug and bacteria anecdotes, please, Lunasong - they've been really entertaining in a gruesome sort of way.


Oh, if you insist...

*BUGS, BUGS, BUGS!*

Woodwind and string instruments are very susceptible to BUGS!

Flutes and clarinets are particularly prone to harbor these little creatures, and when they inhabit the pads of your instrument, you are almost certain to need a complete re-pad and a new case. What causes these little hellions, and where in the world do they come from?

The little bug found in most clarinet and flute pads is the same little larvae that eat holes in your favorite wool sweaters and fine wool carpet. Most of the time, they infest your case while it is being stored. When you start a beginner on a clarinet or flute that has been stored in the closet or attic for a bit, you can expect to find bugs. You can tell he has paid you a visit, by many signs.

First of all, your instrument will begin giving you problems. Some notes will become difficult to sound, or the entire range will seem stuffy. If you look at the pads, you may see a perfectly shaped little hole or tunnel in the wool pad under the skin. It really does look like someone took a bite out of it!

Most of the time, this damage will be very evident from the edge of the pad. Here is a picture, though, of a pad that was eaten from the center. This was a particularly troublesome leak to find. This is a bassoon pad.










Sometimes the skin will be gone, other times, it will still be still intact. Usually there is at least one entry hole of some kind.

One of the other ways you can tell if bugs have paid you a visit, is if they left you a little dried skin shell in the fuzzy lining of your case. Look very closely, perhaps with a magnifying glass. At first glance, the shell will just look like a bit of dirt or beige fuzz.

Also, if bugs have been eating your pads, they leave a little white powdery residue on the case lining. Usually this is only if the bugs are pretty bad.

If you find this powdery residue in your case, the culprit is probably a type of carpet beetle.

String instruments rarely get bugs in the wood, but frequently get them in the bow hair. If you open your case, and your bow has that "bad hair day" look, with bow hair loose everywhere, you probably have bugs. You will have to get the bow rehaired to be rid of them, and you will want to replace your case.

These little creatures are more than likely a type of lice. Suspect them if you frequently open the case to find a few loose hairs. They love old cases, and also eat bookbinding.

What can you do to prevent these pesky creatures? Well, there are several precautions you can take.

1. Always keep your instrument in the house where you are more likely to have sprayed and cleaned. NOT out in a storage room or in the attic.
2. Vacuum your case regularly.
3. Get some of the little cedar balls, sold as products to put in your dresser drawers to prevent bugs. DON'T GET THE MOTHBALLS UNLESS YOU NEVER WANT TO USE YOUR CASE AGAIN, BECAUSE THEY REALLY STINK. Always get the wood products, not the white chemical mothballs, even if they say "cedar-scented." Just drop a couple of the fresh cedar balls in your case every 6 months or so.
4. If you have a cedar-lined closet or drawer, keep your instrument there.
5. Play your instrument regularly.

Source: http://www.johnnypaulsmusicshop.com/articles/ww_bugs.html


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## Lunasong

> Yesterday morning at church, in the middle of our Flute/Oboe/Clarinet offertory, an extremely large, buzzy, and very determined fly decided that my bare right arm would be the perfect place for an extended Sunday morning stroll. I withstood the feeling of tiny feet walking on my arm as long as I could (eek eek eek EEEEK), and then tried to shake him off, but twitching my arm did not serve to discourage him. I had to intermittently stop playing for quite a few measures before I was able to convince him to go away.
> 
> So, I wondered what the pros do, when an insect decides to join the party. Channel the Spartan boy with the fox chewing at his vitals, and continue playing? Or frankly down tools and deal with the invader?
> 
> And I bet there are some much better war stories out there...





> Playing Bach's Magnificat some years ago, during the soprano/d'Amore duet I managed to suck in a fly during a breath. Luckily I didn't inhale him, but during the next phrase he was struggling around, wet, inside my mouth. My major concern for the next few moments was keeping him out of my reed. At the next phrase break I did a WHOOOF and blew him onto the page but still managed to get enough air to continue. My nearby colleagues noticed but I heard no comments from anyone else.
> 
> The sublime beauty of that aria was missing for me that night, though...





> Your problem must be common to many oboe performers. It certainly has hit me.
> 
> A large green cicada or preying mantis swooped down from the rafters during a church performance in Va. years ago and landed on my right cheek. Right in the middle of an oboe solo with organ piece.
> 
> Then the little green monster started crawling slowly up my face. It was all I could do to hold it together and certainly added some shakiness to my vibrato and phrasing.
> 
> The antiphonal choir across the room could see it and had looks of horror on their faces as I struggled to complete the piece. A break sweat happened, the only one I can remember, and I was soaking wet, through and through within 30 seconds.
> 
> It is an amazing memory.
> 
> Afterwards, the church organist/conductor asked why I did not simply stop and swipe the bug away. We could have easily restarted he said, and also it was only a piece of music, not life and death.
> 
> I have never forgotten how that felt and not yet had the chance to test his theory.


..........


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## Lunasong

*THE CLARINET MONSTER*







> This is what lives in your clarinet pads if you don't have them regularly serviced/repadded. My partner is an instrument repairer and has maintained for years that some sort of bug gets into the pads and eats away at them, he had seen little white things that he thought were eggs before but this is the first time that he found the actual bug - it is HUGE! (and now is living somewhere in our house as it has disappeared)





> As i've posted a couple of times before, I'm in India for the year. Today when I went to practice, I went to my room, opened my case, and was horrified to find MILLIONS OF ANTS COVERING MY BEAUTIFUL BUFFET FESTIVAL!
> After I had a heart attack I immediately dashed outside and proceeded to do anything possible to get them off. I've gotten the actual clarinet completely bug-free, and there's no evidence of eggs or tunneling or holes or anything horrible like that. They were teeny little red ants, I think, but I'm not any sort of bug expert. The case ( it's an Attache with the combination lock, I'm not completely sure what it is called) however, is infested. They're inside the fabric, in the creases of the leather, EVERYTHING.





> I had a phone call tonight from a student in a panic because her clarinet case and clarinet seems to be infested with some sort of bug. They look like tiny white dots-but they move!





> My daughter has a school clarinet and it is infested with extremely tiny white insects which are inside the instrument and throughout her case. She had this problem a couple of months ago and we took apart her clarinet and thoroughly cleaned it. We also sprayed inside the case with pesticide. These are very tiny bugs. Where do they come from and how do we keep from getting re-infested? She got the instrument last September and there weren't any bugs at that time. Thanks





> I noticed the bugs on my clarinet mouthpiece earlier on this year (not quite sure when) and immediately put the mouthpiece in boiling water which seemed to do the trick for a while. Now some months down the line, we've got a major problem with them. Most of our clarinets (and we have a fair few!) seem to be infected - we've used milton sterilising tablets and sterilised mouthpieces, plastic barrels, metal ligatures and even a plastic bell. We're not quite sure how to tackle the cases though! Any ideas would be gratefully received!!
> 
> We had a huge box of reeds, both old and new, which I went through yesterday and put the majority into the milton solution, including the reed cases. What I did notice was those reeds that seemed to be more infected were those in the fold up cases rather than the reed cases where you slide the reed out. These reeds and cases are now bagged up and ready to be thrown away. Not all of the infected instruments were stored close together and even more random - a box of bassoon reeds which were on our bookcase seem to be infected too. Nothing else infected was stored on the bookcase.





> I recently found many of my reeds with tiny white insects crawling all over them. Not even exclusively on old reeds but sometimes appear on new/barely used reeds. Urrrrgghhh
> Please help! What are they? Why are they there? How can I get rid of them? Helllllppp!





> Q: I am a student clarinetist and I have noticed a couple months ago these white bugs first on my reeds. These white bugs are like little spots of dust, but when observed carefully they move! These bugs have spread to the rest of my clarinet. I have tried every possible solution, but there has not been one that has worked so far. I have done quite some extensive research to find out what these bugs are, but I have found nothing. I know for sure that they are not carpet beetles, woodlice, mites, and such. Help would be much appreciated.
> 
> A: Many thanks for your interesting note concerning these tiny bugs ambling about on your reeds.
> I am afraid that while I commiserate with you because I too have had them, I could not find out what they are called.
> They are so tiny, you almost don't believe that they are moving, but in fact as we both have determined, they do indeed move.
> (etc.)





> I had seen a slight fraying of one of the pads, thought, "oh ****, pad bugs," but tried to ease my mind that I had probably just grazed the edge with an overly untrimmed fingernail. Then more recently I heard some slight alterations in tone. When I looked, I saw even more of the pad appears eaten at (also explains those larval beetles I keep finding crawling in my bed - one time I got up to use the restroom and when I finished, turning and about to flush, one of these dead, curled up (looks almost like a small millipede, kinda like it has a shell - look up carpet beetles in their larval stage, you'll see what I mean), and as I pulled my shirt down, it flicked into the toilet bowl as I flushed. One I saw crawling by the computer downstairs. I don't want to wait any longer to tell my parents about the problem because apart from the tonal difficulties, frankly it disturbs me to play an instrument I know houses bugs.


A new trend? Playing the clarinet whilst covered in bees.




"Sometimes I've actually inhaled a bee as I was playing my clarinet."


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## Jaws

Lunasong said:


> *THE CLARINET MONSTER*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A new trend? Playing the clarinet whilst covered in bees.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Sometimes I've actually inhaled a bee as I was playing my clarinet."


To the person who thought string instruments were better, someone once gave me a violin that had been in their attic. It had been partially eaten by woodworm. There were a lot of holes. Bows get mites that eat the bow hair.


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## kv466

*NOT SAFE FOR LUNCH...*

The American public school system's idea of food!


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## Lunasong

Jaws said:


> To the person who thought string instruments were better, someone once gave me a violin that had been in their attic. It had been partially eaten by woodworm. There were a lot of holes. Bows get mites that eat the bow hair.


Yah, that was Kopachris. There's actually a lot of information about bow bugs/mites on the internet, but I wasn't able to find any gruesome stories.


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## elgar's ghost

It makes me wonder after reading all this where the absent creature from Lunasong's avatar might be presently lurking...


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## Lunasong

> I know a bassoonist who was blowing a watery tone hole out. When she breathed in to blow some more, a spider was sucked into her mouth from inside the bassoon. No doubt the spider was there to eat the Dermestid Beetles (pad worms).





> I have a wooden Murray Flute, and I took it out of the box to play yesterday, but I saw lots of little white 'dots' in and around the mouth-piece. Looking closer, I could see they were moving. The seem to be tiny (fraction of a millimetre) mites. As best I can see, they have legs, not wings, but don't seem to be fleas.
> So - just wondering if anyone might have any ideas as to what these little critters might be? They're white, don't fly, don't hop…just crawl around. About 50 of them inside and outside of the flute.


..........


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## elgar's ghost

Lunasong said:


> ..........


Hooray! I've been waiting patiently for more of this heh heh...


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## Lunasong

> Back in middle school we had an instrument inspection, and this other trombone used this yellow cleaning "spitball" to clean out his slide. He hadn't washed his instrument for like 7 years, and when blew it through, it came out a dark green color with gooey slime on it, and it hit this girl on her back and in her hair and left a green stain on her white t-shirt.





> I did a bacteria culture of my mouthpiece in 9th grade. A couple days later when our petri dishes were nice and infested, my biology teacher hooked up her microscope to the tv and we all looked at each other's cultures (hehe) on the screen.
> 
> ...Mine had PROTISTS!! x-(
> 
> I then proceeded to run to the band hall and spray my entire instrument with that green disinfectant spray...causing the dye to run out of the wood.
> 
> My clarinet was then purple.





> I have only found small amounts of green stuff in my lead pipe. My sophomore year I had a maroon substance on my valves and in my bell, but I never found out what it was. I usually keep my trumpet clean.





> I never saw it but our band director always tells the story of one of my brother's friends who played baritone during a sectional one day set his horn down and a roach crawled out of the mouthpiece from his horn.





> During band camp a guy left a baritone on the ground when we were stretching, and a squirrel crawled up the bell and got stuck. He only noticed it when he tried to play...it was really disgusting when the drummers had to use a drumstick to lodge the thing out. They later broke the drumstick and used it as a tombstone (in the shape of a cross) over the squirrel's body. What a way to die!





> When I started playing oboe in my senior year of high school I noted that, every time I finished, there would be this pool of spit underneath me. I thought that was so nasty, and wondered if the people in the audience had noticed spit coming from my oboe. I was the only oboe in symphonic band, I sat in the front row (with the flutes and first and second chair clarinets), and I was the tallest person in the band (6'3" at the time). Then on top of that I was a black male sitting amongst white females, so I know the people were like, "Why is spit coming from his horn?"





> The grossest it gets in when my high high high D key starts acting like spit valve, for some reason the spit joins up in the neck of my T. Sax, then runs down and gets on the pad, then whenever I play that note it comes out onto my hands.





> Back in Junior High, I was sittin' there, and the guy who was sitting next to me, who by the way was a year below me, and had horrible...bathing habits... Everyday he would empty his spit valve and there would be a whitish goo with dark green and dark brown specks in it. WELL! One day, he decided not to look where he emptied his spit and it landed right on my foot...and if you know me, the only thing I wear are flip flops...I squealed and my director went off on me and was wondering why I was freaking out. He wouldn't let me go clean it until the end of the period...talk about gross...  ...I've never seen a tuba excrete anything that disgusting...





> I once got a nasty staph infection around my mouth and face from playing someone elses' trombone - you HAVE to be careful. It's not worth having a scabby horrible face for a few weeks!


..........


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## Lunasong

Too long to edit, but the essence is:

A colony of lung-eating monsters had taken up residence inside my horn!


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## Lunasong

Originally posted by KenOC:
Fungus infested bagpipes sicken life-long player



> George Shone, who has played since childhood, is an expert in piobaireachd, the classic music of the Highland bagpipe. He practices daily, but had not cleaned the instrument for at least 18 months because it was sounding so fine and he was preparing for an important performance.
> 
> "Failing to clean my pipes led to me becoming critically ill," said Shone. He got so sick and weak he couldn't walk and lost more than a stone in weight -- or about 14 pounds.
> 
> Desperate, doctors asked about Shone's hobbies and other outside interests. When they learned he was a bagpiper, the medical crew asked to test the instrument - and found the culprit.
> 
> "The 'path lab' reported they had grown a large number of fungi easily and that the deadly fungus that had infected my lungs was amongst them," Shone said.
> 
> Those included the Rhodotorula and Fusarium species, which can cause infections that kill half of the people stricken by them.


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## Lunasong

Lunasong said:


> Too long to edit, but the essence is:
> 
> A colony of lung-eating monsters had taken up residence inside my horn!


Fixed link:
http://eastop.net/tag/milan/


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## Lunasong

From a dentist's website:

_Is your child's musical instrument making them sick?_

We all want our children to have fun and get involved in activities that will help them, grow as person. It has been said that playing a musical instrument can help nourish, cultivate, and increase intelligence in children. Unfortunately some of these musical instruments can be making them sick. A study done by the Academy of General Dentistry found used woodwind and brass instruments to be highly contaminated with a variety of bacteria and fungi. These bacteria and fungi have been linked to infectious and allergic diseases both minor and serious. School instruments are used by many children participating in the school band so without the proper sanitizing these bacteria and fungi can live for weeks, even months. Testing was done on both instruments played regularly and those that had not been used for a month. The results were frightening 442 different bacteria were found, many of which were associated with staphylococcus, the cause of staff infections, as well as 58 molds and 19 yeasts. This mold in your child's instrument can contribute to your child developing asthma, and the yeasts can cause skin infections around the mouth and lips. Being in contact with the mouth causes them to be a breeding ground for bacteria, similar to what dentist see in dentures, mouthguards, and toothbrushes. Research has shown that these bacteria can cause illness not treatable by normally prescribed antibiotics. So let's keep our children healthy, by making sure there instrument are thoroughly and frequently sanitized.


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## elgar's ghost

Huzzah! Lunasong, you may be ploughing a rather lonesome furrow as regards general (un)appreciation of this thread but keep on keeping on - in the great scheme of things I'm sure your efforts will not go unrewarded. Maybe the position of TC's resident Health & Safety Officer might crop up?


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## Lunasong

> my clarinet is really gross and disgusting. it has some bacteria growing on it and it's smelling up my band locker. what is the best way I can clean it using house hold items? and is there a way besides air freshness to get rid of the smell?





> It usually happens right around lunch time. I hear a groan from the general direction of the repair shop then a moment or two later it is followed by a pleading voice saying "You have to see what just came out of this horn!" Although I know better I usually can not resist being a witness to the latest student biology experiment that they have unknowingly been carrying out inside their instrument.
> 
> Brass players are the worst of course. All of the bends and curves are perfect places for little partially chewed pieces of breakfast and lunch to hide. Add some saliva and a month or 6 between cleanings and you can imagine what comes out when we do a complete cleaning.





> After scouring craigslist for a used instrument for the project, I found a, uh, "winner" - a $70 "Vito" brand clarinet at a thrift shop downtown. This thing was disgusting. I don't know who owned it or for how long, but it was filled with… well, it was gross. We'll leave it at that...I just never want to take apart and clean a thrift-store-purchased clarinet again for the rest of my life.





> I have a bassoon and it is nasty i mean like i could probably catch a disease from it, it is so gross and disgusting. It is not mine it is the schools and it seems like it hasn't been cleaned since like the 17th century. I've tried to do the cleaning cloth thing and when i look through the bell it is still very disturbing. Please help me before i get a disease and die from it.





> Confession: I used to ruin all of my reeds with lipgloss. There was a period of about two years when my reeds were caked with pink gloss residue, which would eventually build up so much that the reed could hardly vibrate. It was disgusting.





> I used to share a sax back in highschool, since our school didn't have enough money for everyone to get their own instrument. We had to have our own reeds and mouthpieces for them.
> I used to come in every day, take out the sax, and pull off the absolutely disgusting mouthpiece from the class before. It had bright orange mold all over it. I cannot fathom how someone could put their mouth all over something like that.
> I meanwhile, kept my mouthpiece sterile. Saxophones are incredibly spitty.





> My buddy repairs instruments. His coworker pulled this out of a trumpet today.


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## elgar's ghost

Oh, God - is that a creepy-crawly with some kind of fungus grown out of it? I've seen a documentary where a parasitic spore can settle in an ant and then in time a mushroom-like structure bursts out of its head.


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## Lunasong

It is a kernel of corn that has sprouted.


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## Couac Addict

Lunasong said:


> It is a kernel of corn that has sprouted.


Must have been playing a trumpet _corncerto_.


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## Lunasong




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## Lunasong

> I used the very basic Rico Reedguard inside of a humid-controlled zip bag to store some Vandoren reeds recently, and just after a week, a large amount of black/white mold spots grew ALL OVER them. I threw them all away, and the case as well.
> What can I do to avoid this?





> today I went to play my saxophone and my reeds were covered in green mold (the fuzzy kind). This has happened before a few times. i first had them in a vandoren reed case, then i took the dessicant out, then I just put them in a zip-lock bag and still mold. I've gone through at least 9 reeds due to mold. any suggestions on how I can keep these reeds and not have them grow mold?





> I play the sax, and recently something like mold has been growing on my reeds. It's grayish, and starts as spots, then joins together to make fuzz. I cover it with the reed covers, and I tried different reeds, but no luck.





> Many musicians read with horror the NPR article about "trombone players' lung" which circulated a few days ago. A mold called fusarium was detected inside the trombone of a musician suffering from chronic coughing and according to the article, "mold and bacteria could grow in any brass instrument." It's not much of a stretch to imagine mold and bacteria growing in bassoon bocals (and reeds) as well! To compound the problem, bassoonists are known to regularly "suck in" and then, in the attempt to avoid gurgling sounds and fuzzy attacks, we actually swallow the contents of the bocal. Ewww.......





> Once in H.S. or college, I crushed a dead (bassoon) reed, and the inside was almost completely black. Nasty.





> I remember the first bassoon I played, a student horn belonging to my junior high school. Anyway, it was tough to make a sound. I didn't have a brush, didn't know special brushes existed, but I did run tap water through the bocal, and was astonished by the large chunks of crud that came out. Really, I was mostly surprised that I could get air through at all, given how packed it was with crud. And yeah, clearing it out helped that horn a lot.


...............


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## Majed Al Shamsi

> The skin flora, more properly referred to as the skin microbiome or skin microbiota, are the microorganisms which reside on the skin. Most research has been upon those that reside upon the 2 square metres of human skin, cf. the human microbiome. Many of them are bacteria of which there are around 1000 species upon human skin from 19 phyla. The total number of bacteria on an average human has been estimated at 10^12 (1 trillion).


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_flora

So, really, it's not that bad. I get the feeling we're exaggerating a bit.


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## Lunasong

No kernels of corn have sprouted on me!


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## Lunasong

> (He) knows a kid who never cleans his saxophone.
> "Behind the reed, in the black mouthpiece, it was completely green, it was molded, it was horrible," (he) said.





> I'm pretty sure a clarinet reed is not supposed to look like this. I wonder how often I should change it?


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## elgar's ghost

^
^

I hope that reed is as bad as it got - or is this how it looked AFTER most of the gunk had been scraped off?


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## Lunasong

> I don't even want to read this story. I'm a former clarinet player and I know how it's going to end.


What happened when one man didn't clean his clarinet for 30 years



> Who doesn't clean out their clarinet after 30 years? 15 maybe. But 30!! You're just asking for a heap of hurt.


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## Lunasong

> The tuba player in the community band I play in got a tuba out of someone's garage. It was in pieces and dented; when he picked the parts up, crud started falling out. He brought it to the car wash and used the pressure hose on it and flushed out 3 dead mice.





> A customer brought a clarinet in to us saying she had problems blowing it. I looked into the bore of the top joint and it was full of spiders' webs and a couple of dead spiders (she had actually tried to blow it in this condition!). I picked up the bottom joint which was in a similar condition except the spiders weren't dead...





> a friend wants me to clean a stinky , moldy trumpet he had in his garage.
> 
> i assume it's a brass alloy of sorts, it isn't encrusted, it just smells like vomit.
> 
> my first assumption would be to dunk it into a potassium perm(oxy clean) solution to boil the funky goop off it , then a good hosing w/ mek or naptha.
> 
> or , hot water first? i don't want to ruin the thing.
> 
> any suggestions would be appreciated...





> My son is a music teacher, and his school band room got closed down for Black Mold - and the kids were NOT allowed to get their instruments. They had to have special HazMat people clean everything - which made people very nervous.





> Years ago in our shop there was a saxophone case that a cat had peed in. The smell of the case and instrument was pretty impressive and it was an ongoing project for a long time to get the case clean. One day a customer came into the shop who worked for a chemical company which specialized in deodorizing - this man took it as a personal challenge to get rid of the smell from this case. We told him that whatever he used it had to be safe for the saxophone and he said that it wasn't a problem. After a number of attempts with different chemicals the case did smell much better - not completely fresh, but OK. So, thinking that the problem was solved, we put the saxophone back into the case. Within a week all of the lacquer had flaked off the instrument like some kind of dandruff.


................


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## Lunasong

> When I was a kid I'd get moldy reeds all the time. I was so confused but I powered through. I like to pretend that's how my immune system got so strong.





> I get (mold) on all my reeds. Sometimes I can wipe it off or scrape it off with my fingernail carefully and not to mess with the reed. Or don't. I mean, it's really harmless in my experience.
> Even if it is mold, I had some bassoon reeds that were black on the inside and I'm still alive, so there's that.


...............


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## elgar's ghost

Oh, God - cat's pee?

*


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## MoonlightSonata

I feel thankful to be a string/keyboard player after reading some of this thread


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## Guest

It's enough to make your ears dirty just from listening to music!


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## Lunasong

> Can I still use/How would I clean a moldy clarinet/clarinet case?
> I haven't played mine in months...and I just opened the case and there's fuzz in the case and there are some tiny white bugs on the corks. Ugh it's gross....Thanks.





> I have to wipe off these little, tiny, white bugs off my clarinet which I thought were termites but have now after reading found them to possibly be mites? I'm very worried and need help. I don't have a photo but there is another person who has seen them and asked you, and you answered them being mites and her picture looks exactly the same. How do I get rid of them without damaging any part of my instrument?





> Panic and horror here in France and her royal highness, my partner, tooty flutey herself, took out her flute and found millions ……. ok about a dozen or so very small (less than 0.5mm) white mite type insects running around on her flute head. She thought they might be eating the flute. I thought the sugars in her saliva more likely.
> Anyone else have this problem?





> The whole thing about bugs is marketing hype to convince players to play their horns and not leave them in attics and closets.


....................


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## Rudy

I am almost terrified to open up my flute case now...

In middle school, all the sax players in the different bands shared the single bari sax we had. I switched to it one day while we had a substitute teacher. The first breath I inhaled nearly made me hurl...I can only imagine the goop that was living in the bends of that neck. I couldn't even play it after that, and promptly switched back. Never had mold issues with my own reeds--typically we were taught to remove them and put them in their paperboard sleeves, so they were always dry.


----------

