How to look after your instrument.

Do you have a musical instrument instrument and want to know what to do to keep it playing and sounding its best. If so, I'll be running you through how to look after your pride and joy to keep it playing and sounding its best.

Let's face it, we've all gone through a stage where we've let things slip and things have fallen into disrepair, gotten dirty etc. Even though instruments don't need around the clock attention, it will be severely beneficial for both you and your instrument if you take a little bit of time to look after them.

Cleaning.

Kicking this off with cleaning your instrument. Goes without saying but a clean instrument always feels nicer to play but there's much more important reason to clean it. Oil from your skin, water, dirt and dust can have a detrimental effect to the finish and components of your instrument, sometimes resulting in surface scratching and parts rusting. Its always good to give your hands a wash before you play just to reduce the oily residue from your hands. Depending on how long it's been since you last played, it may be worth giving your instrument a quick wipe over to remove any dust or dirt that has accumulated. At the end of the day, the last thing you want to do is scratch anything into your paint. Every now and again, while changing your strings for example, its well worth doing a deep clean and condition parts like your fretboard. Personally I find the most beneficial time to clean your instrument is straight after playing, this way any residue is relatively easy to remove and your instrument will be nice and clean ready for your next practice session.

Replacing parts.

Whether you play strings, percussion, woodwind etc, certain parts of your instruments naturally need replacing after a certain period. These can include strings, drum heads and reeds. Nothing quite beats the feeling of a fresh set of strings on your guitar and its surprising how much it will boost your moral. This will give your instrument a new lease of life and will keep it playing and sounding great.

Maintenance.

On to the more time consuming part, maintenance. Almost every instrument requires a degree of maintenance. This can vary from an in depth set up, to fixing a loose electrical connection. Keeping on top of this will help reduce the chances of something going wrong. This unfortunately happened to me when I was performing at a festival a few years ago. I always put off checking the connections and components in my bass amp head and what happened when I was preparing for soundcheck, my DI output wasn't working. Thankfully the sound guy managed to find another way to DI me to the mixing desk but that experience has made me appreciate the importance of maintenance and checks.

Seek professional help.

Next up, following on from the maintenance, despite there being a fountain of knowledge on how to carry out repairs, if you don't feel confident, always seek professional help. You would kick yourself if you attempted to fix an issue and something went wrong. Not to mention sometimes it will cost more and take up more time repairing a mistake then it would if your instrument was repaired by a luthier.

Tuning.

Tuning! No one like to play an out of tune instrument so keeping on top of your instrument's tuning is key and will help keep it sounding its best. I get that most of you stringed instrument players will only need to tune as and when you play but for those of you such as drummers and pianists that neither have the time nor patience to tune your instrument each time, spending some time every now and again will benefit you massively. Why wait till your instrument has dropped severely out of tune when you can spend half the time keeping on top of it a handful of times a year. This will also mean that you wont have to make larger tuning adjustments in one go which could potentially result in causing damage.

How to handle your instrument.

Some of you will probably say with this next one "don't talk rubbish, its not rocket science" but to that I say, the majority of other people's instruments I've repaired over the years were damaged by improper handling. Learn how to handle your instrument, what to touch, what not to touch. Knowing where the fragile parts are will help reduce the chances of damaging the.

Playing technique.

Playing technique can also be quite a common cause of damage to an instrument. Whether this is fretboard damage from pressing too hard, or cracked cymbals from being too aggressive, practicing good technique will not only benefit you but will reduce the amount of wear on your instrument. I highly recommend keeping those fingernails cut short as well for you stringed players, apart from if you need them for your style of playing of course. Save your fretboard.

Storing your instrument.

Storing you instrument in the best way you can will of course help look after it. Hard cases will provide a hell of a lot more protection over gig bags. Wall hangers over being popped up in the corner. This will also keep them off the ground incase they get knocked over. Depending on your instrument and how far you want to go, you can even add things like humidity packs in the cases to stop the wood from drying out. Going back to the first tip I mentioned in this post, try to make sure you store your instrument when its clean, its always a good habit to get into.

Look after your instrument.

Last on our list and probably the most self explanatory, look after your instrument. Whether that be, putting it on a stand or in a case when not in use, or keeping it away from humid environments such as bathrooms. Respect your instrument and look after it, and it'll look after you.

If you follow the steps I've mentioned in this post then hopefully your instrument will sound and play the best it can for a long time to come. I hope reading this has helped you gain a better understanding of how to look after your instrument. If you have any concerns about any aspect of this then please feel free to get in contact and we'll do what we can to help.