This book would be a great gift idea for any young student of the trumpet. Geared toward the middle to high school age trumpeter, and published by Note-A-Day Publishing, the book is presented beautifully in a calendar format. So, each day of the year the student gets a “lesson” (really a “tip”) and some additonal guidance. Also daily entertaining “trumpet trivia.”

Although I don’t give instructions for it here, you should also clean your mouthpiece out with a Mouthpiece Brush. You should do this more often than cleaning out the entire horn. Once a week is a good rule of thumb.

Before you begin, it’s a good idea to prepare your workspace and assemble all the tools you’ll need for the job:

• Sink or tub filled with moderately warm water — not too hot to touch, not too cold to be uncomfortable (I use a kitchen sink, but a bathtub or laundry tub works too… basically you need a space large enough to fit your entire trumpet and get it mostly under water). I usually add a small amount of dish soap (hand dish-washing soap, not dishwasher detergent, which can damage the plating)
• Snake, for cleaning slides and leadpipe tubing.
• Valve casing brush, for cleaning the valve casings (I prefer the H.W. Brass Saver Trumpet Cleaning Brushes for this)
• Lubricants (slide grease, valve oil).

Shown here from left to right: HW Brass Saver valve casing brush and snake, regular snake, and regular valve casing brush.

Once you’ve got everything in place, it’s time to disassemble your trumpet. Start by removing the valves and setting them aside in a safe place (for me, this means out of reach of cats, who think it’s a lot of fun to knock them over and watch my entertaining reaction).

Next, remove all the slides. In the picture below you can see my C trumpet with the valves and slides removed. You can see the first, second and third valve slides, as well as the main tuning slide. Note that if your trumpet is a Bach Stradavarius Bb, the third valve slide can be separated into two parts.

BE CAREFUL WHEN REMOVING YOUR SLIDES! If they’re stuck, don’t force them out, or use pliers or other tools. It’s really easy to pull the tubing apart in places you didn’t intend to (ie: at the solder joints) and spoil an otherwise good day. If you can’t pull the slide out with medium level effort, finish cleaning your trumpet and take it to a professional repair person to have the slides pulled.

Watch out for small parts that are easy to lose while you’re taking the trumpet apart, and set them aside in a safe place. These parts can include third valvle slide stopper nuts and screws, bottom valve caps, clip-on pencil holders, etc.

Now that your trumpet is in pieces, it’s time to start cleaning. I like to start with the slides first, soaking them in the water for a minute, then pulling the snake or brass saver brush through the tubing:

After snaking out each of the slides, carefully rinse them with fresh water to remove all soap residue, then dry and set them on the towel.

Next, place the main body of your trumpet into the water. Make sure the tubing fills with water and let it soak for a couple minutes. Then, clean out the various tubes. I like to use the snake on the leadpipe, an the thin end of the Brass Saver valve casing brush on the smaller tubes that enter the valve casings. Finally, I use the big end of the valve casing brush on the valve casings.

After you finish cleaning all the tubing, you can drain the water from your sink and carefully rinse the trumpet body. I find the spray nozzle on my kitchen sink works great for this, but be carefull not to splash water all over the room!

Gently dry the trumpet and set it on a towel along with the slides. It can be helpful at this point to arrange the slides near the spots where they belong, especially if you’re new to the trumpet and aren’t totally sure where they go.

Before reinserting the slides, you’ll need to put some slide grease on them. You don’t need a lot of grease for each slide… just enough for a thin coat. I like to put the grease on one side of the slide at a time, then then insert only that half of the slide into the trumpet and rotate it around a bit to spread the grease around. After you get the slide lubed to your satisfaction and fully inserted into the trumpet, it’s a good idea to use your towel to wipe off the excess grease that will inevitably squeeze out of the slide.

If you find that this leaves your first and third valve slides too stiff for normal use, you can mix a drop or two of valve oil with the grease on those slides, or use a lighter grease on those slides, such as Hetman Light Tuning Slide Oil

When you finish re-assembling the trumpet, it’s time to clean the valves. I like to use just a little dish soap and warm running water for this. It’s very important that you NOT get the top part of the valve wet! This is the part with the felt pads on it. If those felt pads get wet, they can compress and cause your valves to become misaligned. The only part of the valve that needs to be cleaned is the bottom section with the ports (those are the holes that line up with the various slides on the trumpet).

Make sure you carefully rinse of all soapy residue from the valves. DO NOT DRY YOUR VALVES! Drying the valves can end up leaving small traces of lint on the surface of the valve which can make them stick or slow down later on. Put a few drops of oil on each valve and carefully place them in their proper place (for more information on this, see the article “How to Oil Your Valves” elsewhere on this site).

At this point your trumpet should in great shape for your next practice session! Don’t forget to clean everything up behind you, and check the sink or tub for leftover trumpet slime.

• Cameron’s Music – Located on Middlebelt in Livonia. He has a good selection of Bach mouthpieces in stock, as well as some of the more standard method books.
• Royal Music – On Main Street in downtown Royal Oak. This store has a good selection of sheet music, as well as many different sizes and brands of mouthpiece.

Ensembles in Southeast Michigan that provide experience for young musicians.

General Tips

1. Allways oil your valves before important performance events, such as concerts, rehearsals and lessons. Even if they’re working fine now, they could start sticking at the worst possible moment. You know what they say about “An ounce of prevention…”.
2. If one of your valves is sticking, OIL ALL THREE! If you oil only the valve that’s sticking, you can almost guarantee that another one will soon stick.
3. Keep your valves (and your entire instrument) clean! You can oil your valves all day long, but if there’s a cat hair in there, they’ll keep sticking anyway!
4. If your teacher tells you a different way to oil your valves, try their way and my way, and do whatever works best for you! There is more than one way to get the job done!!

Holding your instrument

Before dissassembling the valves, make sure you are holding the trumpet in your left hand, with the valves tilted up at about a 45 degree angle (see photo)

Pulling out the Valves

Unscrew the valve caps on all three valves at the same time, then pull each valve PARTWAY out, as in the photo.

Be careful not to rotate the valves as you pull them. You don’t want to accidentally put them in backwards when you finish!

Applying the Oil

Put a few drops on the smooth exposed area of each valve. Three to four drops per valve should be plenty.

You don’t need to oil the spring, or the part of the valve that holds the spring. The only area that needs oil is the part that comes in contact with the valve casing (see photo).

Reassembling the Valves

Carefully slide the valves back into their original positions, taking care not to spin them as you do so. On most valves, there is a number on the spring area that tells you whether this is valve 1, 2 or 3. This number usually faces the mouthpiece.

DO NOT FORCE THE VALVES BACK IN – If you have any trouble getting the valves back into position, gently, slowly, and carefully wiggle them back and forth and up and down. This usually will do the trick.

Once the valves are in position, carefully screw the valve caps back on. They should be only “finger-tight”. You want to be able to unscrew them easily next time you oil them!

Final Testing
After everything is back in place, it’s always a good idea to blow some air through the horn and make sure everything is working. If you can, play a note or two to make sure they come out. If you’ve accidentally put a valve or two in backwards, you’ll discover it now instead of during your performance!