Saxophone & Accessory Cleaning

Remember saxophone lung? It has been more than a decade since this potentially lethal condition was brought to to our attention, and had us all reconsidering how we clean & look  after our gear.  

I was 100% sure I had written articles on best practice methods of cleaning gear. However, after having just spent the better part of 3 months going through all the articles published in The Bassic Sax Blog—and culling over 1,000 of them—I was surprised to discover that I hadn’t written about anything other than MP cleaning.

So without further adieu, let’s take a deeper dive into how to clean all the parts of your gear properly and effectively. Along the way you’ll also pick up one or two key tips on why this is important.  

Before playing

• Brush your teeth;
• Use mouthwash if you can’t brush;
• At a minimum rinse your mouth thoroughly with water.

Pro tip

• Food particles will get blown into your horn and get stuck to the horn & pads. 
• This shortens pad life and allows for bacteria and fungi to grow.

While playing

• Drink only water.

Pro tip

• Anything sugary allows for bacteria & fungi to grow.
• Drinking water only makes sure you keep your horn & pads clean. 

After playing: Instrument cleaning 

Materials needed

• Old cotton T-shirts cut into pieces;
• Sax stands;
• The appropriate swabs for cleaning the inside of the horn;
• Neck swabs;
• Mouthpiece swabs.

Soprano 

1. Disassemble your your instrument—to whatever point it comes apart. 😉 
2. Use a silk swab to dry out the inside of the body (I prefer Hodges). 
   • May not be recommended on vintage, one-piece sopranos. You will have to judge for yourself and adapt. An oboe swab might work. 
3. Use an old cotton T-shirt to dry out the inner part of the socket, both the inside & outside of the neck tenon, as well as the cork.
4. If your soprano has a detachable neck, use a suitable neck swab to dry the neck as best as you can.
5. Take the reed off the MP; dry it with the old cotton T-shirt; and store it in a reed holder (I use the new D’Addario Reed Guards. They are cheap; number the reeds; and work well for synthetics as well as cane. I have about 30 or so for all my different horns.)
6. Use a MP swab and dry out your MP before reattaching your lig and storing it back in the case.
7. When you get home unpack all your gear and let your horn air dry in a stand.
8. Let your neck and MP, as well as all the cleaning swabs/rags air dry as well.
9. Put your horn, MP, & neck and cleaning stuff back in the case when dry.

Pro Tip

• C sopranos have a smaller bore, so the conventional soprano swabs are too big. I use an English horn swab so it doesn’t get stuck. For a stand I use the K&M trumpet stand. Works very well. 

Alto/Tenor/C Mel 

1. Disassemble your your instrument.
2. Use a silk swab to dry out the inside of the body (I prefer Hodges).
3. Use an old cotton T-shirt to dry out the inner part of the socket, both the inside & outside of the neck tenon, as well as the cork.
4. Use a neck swab to dry the neck as best as you can.
5. Take the reed off the MP; dry it with the old cotton T-shirt; and store it in a reed holder (I use the new D’Addario Reed Guards. They are cheap; number the reeds; and work well for synthetics as well as cane. I have about 30 or so for all my different horns.).
6. Use a MP swab and dry out your MP before reattaching your lig and storing it back in the case.
7. When you get home unpack all your gear and let your horn air dry in a stand.
8. Let your neck and MP, as well as all the cleaning swabs/rags air dry as well.
9. Put your horn, MP, & neck and cleaning stuff back in the case when dry.

Pro tip

• Silk is very absorbent.
• Avoid swabs with a brush and/or sponge as they tend to get stuck inside the instrument. 
• Do not use those pad savers that get stuffed into your horn’s body and left there. It doesn’t actually remove the moisture from your horn, and at the same time can encourage bacteria and fungi to grown on the inside. 

 Bari/Bass

1. Drain the water through the spit valve.
2. Disassemble your instrument.
3. Use a pigtail swab to dry out the pigtail as best as you can.
   • On bass this swab only goes part way up the first straight section of pigtail, but that’s better than nothing. It is shocking how much condensation builds up in there after a 2-3 hour rehearsal/show.
4. Use an old cotton T-shirt to dry out the inner part of the socket, both the inside & outside of the neck tenon, as well as the cork.
5. Use a neck swab to dry the neck as best as you can.
6. Take the reed off the MP; dry it with the old cotton T-shirt; and store it in a reed holder (I use the new D’Addario Reed Guards*. They are cheap; number the reeds; and work well for synthetics as well as cane. I have about 30 or so for all my different horns.).
7. Use a MP swab and dry out your MP before reattaching your lig and storing it back in the case.
8. When you get home unpack all your gear and let your horn air dry in a stand.
9. Let your neck and MP, as well as all the cleaning swabs/rags air dry as well.
10. Put your horn, MP, & neck and cleaning stuff back in the case when dry.

Pro Tip

• * If you use true bass saxophone reeds on your horn, the Reed Guards may not work. It all depends on which reeds you use. Look for reed storage solutions for contrabass clarinets. Those have the same width as bass sax reeds, but are a little shorter (depending on the brand). 
• Bari and bass saxophones can go a very long time between overhauls since their pads are exposed to so little moisture compared to their smaller cousins. 
• Cleaning and drying the pigtail will really help in reducing pad wear on these horns. 

Mouthpiece Cleaning 

Materials Needed

• Plastic container;
• Regular, NOT anti-bacterial, dish soap;
• Q-Tips;
• Towel;
• Optional: very soft MP brushes.

This should be done once a week. 

1. Find a plastic Tupperware or similar container large enough to accommodate your mouthpieces when you lay them flat.
2. Mix up a solution warm, NOT HOT, water and any non-antibacterial dish soap like Sunlight, Dawn, Palmolive, or whatever else you have.
3. Gently place your mouthpiece(s) in the soapy water and let sit for about 5 or so minutes.
4. Using Q-tips, clean the beak, tip and side rails, chamber, and as far into the barrel as you can. Don’t cheap out on the Q-tips. I usually use at least 3 or 4 per mouthpiece.
5. If you are going to use a MP brush, make sure it is a very, very soft one that won’t scratch.
6. Rinse the MP out with warm water.
7. Place it on a clean towel, table side up, and let it air dry. Once dry, turn the MP over onto its table and let it dry that way as well—until it is completely dry.
8. When it’s dry, reattach the lig and cap and store back in the case. 

Pro Tips

• Never use hot water. It can damage, and will discolour your hard rubber MPs.
• Make sure to NOT use anti-bacterial soaps. They DO NOT clean any better. It is just advertising hype. 
• I use a lot of different brushes to clean my different size MPs. Most of the brushes are not even for MPs, let alone saxophones. 
• The key feature your MP brush has to have is SOFT bristles, or you run the risk of scratching your piece.
• Use the brushes gently and don’t scrub.
• Soaking the pieces for 5 minutes in warm, soapy water will loosen most of the gunk on them making scrubbing unnecessary.  

Brushes – Optional

I am not a big believer in the need for brushes when cleaning MPs. If you clean you MPs regularly—using the method I suggest here ^^^—you generally don’t have to use any kind of brush. Q-tips will do the job nicely. 

That said, I do have some brushes around for when I get a new-to-me, vintage or used piece that I want to make some effort to clean well. (This is especially true if the piece is really crusty, grimy, or otherwise disgustingly dirty.)

There are a lot of different kinds of brushes around, and the ones I always choose have above all, one quality. They have to be SOFT. They also have to have rubber tips on the end to protect the MP from scratches. 

Reed Cleaning

Materials Needed

1. Torn up T-shirt;
2. Running water;
3. Regular, NOT anti-bacterial, dish soap;
4. Antimicrobial spray made for MPs;

Regardless if you use cane or synthetic, reeds eventually do need to be cleaned. How you clean them is actually really the same. 

1. After you’ve finished playing, wipe the reed down with a cotton T-shirt and store it in a reed holder.
2. If you have running water available to you, rinse the reed off, dry slightly with a cotton T-shirt, and then store it in a reed holder. 
3. Then occasionally use something like Steri-Spray, Sterisol, or Mi-T-Mist to lightly mist the reed with an antimicrobial to kill the germs. Make sure to RINSE OFF THE REED before storing it. Do not allow the antimicrobial to dry on the surface of the reed.
4. For my synthetics, I often place them with my MPs in the plastic tub full of dish soap and clean them along with the MPs. 

Neck Cleaning

Materials Needed

1. Torn up T-shirt;
2. Neck saver in the right size for your horn.

I have seen some people, even techs, recommend that you run water through your horn’s neck to clean it. I’ve never found it necessary to do. If you:

1. Brush your teeth before you play.
2. Use mouthwash if you can’t brush.
3. At a minimum, rinse your mouth out with water before you play.
4. Drink only water while playing.
5. Use a cotton T-shirt to wipe the cork, outside, and inside of the neck tenon after you have disassembled the horn.
6. Use a neck saver to dry out your horn’s neck after you’re finished playing.
7. Air dry the neck when you get home.

Doing all those things reduces the need for any more invasive cleaning on a part of the instrument. 

Pad & tone holes cleaning

For nearly 15 years now I have only used this method to keep my pads and tone holes clean. Yes, it works, and no, it doesn’t damage the pad leather. 

Materials needed

1. Lighter fluid like Zippo or Ronsonol. The kind of liquid fluid used to fill cigarette wick lighters like Zippo, etc;
2. Pipe cleaners. (I cut mine into halves or thirds, depending on their length);
3. Old thin cotton sheet torn into strips.

Large saxophone tone holes

1. Wet the pipe cleaner with lighter fluid and rub it over the pad gently. Focus on the indent made by the tone hole.
2. Wipe the tone hole and tone hole bore with the pipe cleaner.
3. Repeat if necessary a couple of times if the tone hole/pad is especially dirty.

Small saxophone tone holes/small horns

1. For smaller saxophones or tone holes where the clearance of the key to the pad is not enough: use a strip of cotton sheet.
2. Wet corner/top section of the cotton sheet with lighter fluid.
3. Place the wet sheet over the entire tone hole.
4. Press down the key gently.
5. Pull out the cotton strip.

Green stuff on you pads/toneholes?

1. If you have green gunk on your pads/tone holes, lighter fluid may alone not be enough to clean the verdigris.
2. In this case you have to go old school and get out an old-style $ bill—the new polymer $$ many countries use won’t work—and place it over the tone hole. 
3. Gently hold down the key and pull out the $ bill. This will clean the tone hole and pad by acting as a bit of an abrasive.
4. Afterwards, use the lighter fluid and clean the pad & tone hole as outlined in steps 1-3 above.

Pro Tip

• It should go without saying, but do not smoke while using lighter fluid to clean your pads.
• Lighter fluid will NOT damage your pads. It will not strip them of oils. It will not loosen their shellac or glue. I have been using this method for more than 15 years on all my horns and have and NO problems.
• UK’s Stephen Howard—who I learned this cleaning method from in his now out-of-print book the Haynes Saxophone Manual—has done pad studies for over 10 years, and has never noticed any problems with pad damage. This works, and is better than any powder or anything on the market.

Store all your oils & have a space

Although as sax players we don’t have nearly as many oils and greases as brass players do, we still have quite a few. If you’re a doubler, then the supplies we have to have on hand can quickly add up. 

I always recommend that players have a space to store their oils, greases, and supplies, and have a space to do their maintenance that has good lighting. I use the workshop that is across the hall from the studio I set up in our home. There is a stainless steel link in the room complete with a workbench that allows me to do everything I need to do from washing MPs, to oiling my horns.