1 Learning & Playing Tuba/Trumpet/Euphonium/Baritone/Flugelhorn/French Horn/Cornet

Cornet And Trumpet Care For The Busy Musician

Cornets were developed from basically a post horn, which over time was curled and developed into the form you see today. Valves were added which allowed more playable notes and dexterity of performance. It’s the careful manufacturing and hand work that make it into a cornet that plays well. Take care of your instrument and it won’t let you down.
There is nothing worse than being in the middle of a show and your valves or slides start to stick. It can ruin a perfectly good performance.
Cleaning the cornet should only take about 10 to 15 minutes of your time and the results are more than beneficial to your playing. You would be surprised at the “gunge” that appears out of the tubes after a good clean.
So let’s begin. Run a warm bath – Yes a bath, and put a small amount of dishwashing soap into it. Check with your product information or your manufacturer’s website to make sure before you use it. Pull all the valves and slides out of the cornet and place everything submerged under the water – Leave to soak for about 30 mins. That was easy! Note – you may have to disconnect the “triggers” on the first and third valve slides if they are fitted.
You’ll need a flexible cleaning pull through brush, a valve casing brush, and a mouthpiece brush. You’ll also need silver polish and two lint free polishing cloths, valve oil, and slide grease. (I use petroleum jelly)
Now it’s time to put the pull through brush to work. Gently feed it into the tubes of the cornet and pull through the brush, watch out for the “Gunge”. Do this a couple of times and then rinse the cornet tubes out under running water until it runs clear. Do this now to all the removable slides as well.
Now using the valve brush we need to clean the valve casing. Just push the brush in and out a couple of times and all should be well. Now turning to the valves themselves. First of all you need to clean the internal surfaces of holes. You can also use the pull through for this but be careful not to scratch them. Using a Silver polish and the lint free cloth, now clean the valves outer surface, dry off and polish with a separate clean rag.
Now the Slides. Again using the silver polish clean the slides. If your cornet is of the lacquered type (brass looking) DO DOT use silver polish on the external surfaces. This attacks the coating. Just use warm soapy water to clean.

Finally clean the inside surface of the valve caps both top and bottom again with a soft rag.
After all the internals of the cornet are clean, its time now to clean the external surfaces, again remember if it is of the lacquered type just soap and water will clean it. Otherwise on silver-plated surfaces use your metal polish.
Now it’s time to re-assemble the cornet, oil the valves and 1st and 3rd valve slides, and grease the slides. If you have triggers on your instrument on the first and third slides it is better to use valve oil on them as they will move faster.
Trevor Halliwell has been a band player and director for 45 years with college diplomas in trumpet performance and music education.

About the Author

 

Trevor Halliwell (http://www.trevorhalliwell.co.uk) is a Cornet/Trumpet performer and teacher in the North West of England. He is a Fellow of the Trinity College of Music London.

 

 

Any trumpet/cornet players here?

Hey ive just started playing the cornet, and Im not having lessons and i dont intend to really, but i am just learning as much as i can from book lent to me by the school. I am wondering how you can change your mouth to get different notes, because surely you can play more than one octave of notes….?

played both, and the french horn in school, try plying the notes without using the valves (like a bugle) that worked for me…….takes a while to perfect