Hi everyone my name is Brae Grimes and I'm the product and repair specialist for
band and orchestral instruments at Yamaha Music Australia so here at Yamaha we
have a number of clarinets in our range ranging from E-flat sopranino
clarinets to B-flat and A clarinets, alto clarinets and bass clarinets but today
I'm going to be focusing specifically on our range of b-flat clarinet the majority
of that clarinets are actually made of grenadilla which is an african blackwood
and come with silver plated keys but our base model YCL-255 is a resin
clarinet with nickel plated keys the advantage of nickel plated keys is that
it's quite hard wearing, quite durable and the resin body is easy to clean and easy
to maintain wooden instruments require a little bit more care so they
need to be played-in and they need to be maintained very regularly so now I'm
going to show you the correct way to assemble your clarinet this might only
seem like a little thing but doing it right and doing it right every time can
prolong the life of your instrument the way I like to do it is I like to hold
down the bridge key, the bridge key is this key right here it bridges the two
joints together so by holding down this ring the bridge key lifts second with my
other hand whichever that may be at the time I like to hold around the bottom of
the joint either around the tenon or holding down the bottom tone hole key
with my thumb the reason I hold down the bottom of the joint rather than around
here is because there's a delicate key called the crows foot this keeps your
low levers in regulation so in this case I have my left hand holding down
the ring key here lifting up the bridge key and my right hand on the bottom of
the bottom joint and when I push it together I use a slight twisting motion not overly
twisting just to get it into line and push the two joints together
once it's aligned the bridge key should form a perfect line if your bridge key
is out of alignment these pads will not seal properly
there's no right or wrong
way to do it from here some people like putting the bell on the
bottom joint before they fit the to two joints together and that's totally fine
some people like to do it afterwards for those who are doing it afterwards I
suggest holding it like you go to play it so I've got my right hand on the bottom
joint as if I was playing it and I fit the bell with a slight twisting motion
and the same goes for the top joint I've got the barrel here again if you want to
fit the barrel to the top joint before you put the two joints together that's
fine if you're going to do it afterwards hold it like you're gonna play it and a
slight twist and it goes on just fine it's also worth mentioning that you
should apply cork grease to all the cork joints before putting them together this
ensures not only a great seal on the instrument but also eases the assembly
of the instrument so within our range we have a number of optional extras with
our clarinets our 450 series clarinets come with a Duet bore as
well as a standard grenadilla body the Duet bore is a resin lined bore which
actually prevents swelling and cracking from the 650 up we have optional e-Flat
auxilary keys which is this key here and on our custom range of
clarinets we have a pitch correction lever situated around the back here
the pitch correction lever aids with the intonation of low notes on
the clarinet it's very important to prolong the life of your instrument that
you swab out your instrument after you play this is especially important for
wooden instruments as when they're exposed to moisture and humidity
they often swell and sometimes crack to swab out your instrument I have one rule
for clarinet and that's big end too small end Yamaha
clarinets are provided with a microfiber swab which you'll find in your care kit
upon purchase drop the weighted string down the big end or the bell of
the instrument and pull through gently to remove any excess moisture you may
have to do this a couple of times to remove the most moisture sometimes
you'll need to use cleaning paper to remove excess moisture from the tone holes
do this by releasing the key placing the cleaning paper under the
pad releasing the key again removing the cleaning paper you can do this with open pads
as well by sticking the cleaning paper in pushing down the key and releasing
the key and removing the cleaning paper
For silver plated key work I use Yamahas silver polishing cloth to wipe
down the keywork after I play this ensures that the instrument cases nice brilliant
sheen for any lacquer and nickel-plated keys I use Yamahas DX
microfiber polishing cloth to remove the acid from my fingers that transfers onto
the key work when I play this ensures that the lacquer is kept in a great
condition for its playing life