Earlier this year, we wrote a blog post about how to choose the ultimate musical instrument case. Now, presuming you spent a lot of time, energy, and brainpower making this important decision, it’s important to understand how to best look after it! Buying a musical instrument case is an investment. Taking care of it will help it last longer, protect your instrument better, and retain its value.
In this blog, we’ll share our top tips for keeping your case clean, dry and tidy!
Keeping your case clean
As obvious as it seems, the easiest way to keep your case clean is to not get it dirty in the first place:
- Avoid placing it on the floor, or leaving it in dusty cupboards
- Try not to keep items that could leak inside your case, such as oils or greases
- Don’t carry snacks inside your case
- Don’t eat or drink near your case (or on top of it!)
You may be thinking that these are fairly obvious, but with the best will in the world, our cases can still get a little grubby. We don’t expect you to wrap your case in cotton wool, or never take it out of the house. This defeats the ENTIRE point of having a musical instrument case in the first place.
We recommend wiping down the outside of your case regularly with a damp cloth or wipe. Not only is this good for keeping your case looking smart, but will also remove germs picked up when you’re out and about. This is something a lot of us are thinking more about now!
To clean the inside of the case, it’s incredibly important that you remove your instrument first, and place it somewhere safeThis allow us to reach all the nooks and crannies in the case. We also don’t want to damage our instrument in the process. If your case is particularly dirty, consider wrapping some Sellotape around your fingers, and using it to pick up unwanted fluff and dust. This is very similar to lint rolling a woolly jumper but will allow you to get into the fiddly corners too. Once you’ve finished with this stage, refresh the inside of your case. Give it a spritz with our Edgware Sanitiser Spray, then leave it to dry before putting your instrument back inside again.
Keeping your case dry
You may be lucky enough to live in a part of the world that doesn’t get a lot of rain, or not need to spend much time outside with your instrument case. We are a British brand, made up of British musicians, who have the pleasure of dealing with very British weather. Here are a few things we do to keep our instrument cases dry when we get stuck in the rain:
- Place case inside another waterproof bag
- Purchase a case that’s waterproof
- Purchase a case with a waterproof cover, or buy a separate waterproof cover
- Run as fast as we can between buildings
- Hold our umbrella over our case, rather than ourselves (our instrument case > our hair)
Most cases will protect our instruments from the rain relatively well, but if you’re at all concerned, remove your instrument from the case as soon as you can, and allow your case to dry off completely before returning your instrument to it.
Keeping your case tidy
Now, we don’t want to sound like a nagging parent about tidying your room, but GO CLEAN YOUR INSTRUMENT CASE!
It would be such a shame to be going to all this effort to keep your instrument case clean and dry, but it still look like a dumping ground for old reeds, rehearsal pencils, and whatever other miscellaneous objects you hide in there. Not only does unnecessary clutter run the risk of damaging your instrument if it ends up in the main body of your case, but it can also make finding certain things incredibly frustrating. As an aside, there is nothing more satisfying than an organised musical instrument case, and we’re willing to fight anyone that feels differently!
- De-clutter your musical instrument case regularly – think Marie Kondo style – does each item bring you joy?
- Utilise any additional pockets in your case to keep the main sections for your instrument completely clear
- Use old travel bags or pencil cases to store maintenance products (waterproof if possible for liquids) and other accessories such as reeds, or spare mouthpieces
- Make yourself an instrument first aid kit that you can grab in an emergency
One last tip that didn’t fit into any of the above headings, but is important to mention is…don’t sit on your case! This would seem fairly obvious to those of us with soft cases and gig bags. However, even if you have a hard case, we wouldn’t recommend it. Each case comes with a certain weight it can withstand, so unless you know this, and that you’re well below this weight, don’t even think about planting your bottom on top of it!
So, there you have it – some top tips on how to look after your musical instrument case. If you have any requests, feel free to let us know here or reach out to us on Instagram and Facebook!
