Cleaning Your Brass Instrument

Cleaning Your Brass Instrument

Brass instruments should be cleaned internally on a yearly basis. The following is a description of that process. Please note that rotor instruments such as french horns, rotor bubas, and rotor trombones should not be cleaned at home. They have special requirements and should only be cleaned by a qualified repair shop. You can double check with your teacher to see if your instrument is a rotor instrument or not.

To clean your instrument, you must take it apart completely. You will also need some cleaning brushes (available at music stores or from the school), valve oil, slide grease, and some liquid dish soap. You will also need a place to clean the instrument. Unless you have a large sink, a bathtub is probably the best place.

1. Carefully remove all slides, valves and valve bottom caps. Extreme care should be taken with trombone slides as they are very delicate, especially when they are apart! If any of the slides are stuck, do not use excessive force to try and remove it. Take your instrument to a repair shop to have them removed. They can be damaged if not removed properly.

3. While the instrument soaks, take the valves and run warm water over them and brush out all openings in the valves with the valve brush. Shake off any extra water and set valves aside to dry. Also, use warm water and your mouthpiece brush to clean your mouthpiece. If there’s any stubborn debris on it, you may use a small amount of liquid dish soap to clean it off.