Water Water Everywhere

We clarinetists know how frustrating it is to play a long lyrical passage from the Debussy Rhapsody with a clarion Bb that sounds like you became the world’s flutter tongue expert.
@#%&*%# ! The dreaded water in side keys!
With a little analysis, and changing of habits we can actually prevent this occurrence. No, I’m not talking about psychotherapy, although that may be necessary also. I’m talking about condensation, and what that water does inside the clarinet.
For years, I’ve watched some of the greatest players in the world do everything in their power to guarantee that water will come out side key toneholes. Then in a flurry of activity, I see swabbing, flying cigarette paper, and sounds that would humble an air compressor at a discount tire store.
If we take a moment to look at what is really happening, we see that water will condense in the bore of the clarinet. We cannot prevent it. It’s nature’s joke on us. We can however, keep the water away from the side key toneholes in the first place.

What do you do with the clarinet when taking a break from practicing? If you set it on a table with the open holes down, it is obvious where the water is going. Always put the clarinet with the RH side keys up. It is held easily in this position by the thumb-rest and left-hand F key. It’s not even necessary to swab.
Clarinets adopt habits of their own. (maybe they are the ones in need of psychotherapy). When counting rests, get in the habit of holding the clarinet at an angle, open tone holes up (rotated with the RH side keys slightly higher), bell on knee, barrel on shoulder. Once water forms a path in a certain direction, it will follow it again and again. So the solution, is to get the water to go where we want it to go.

In that flurry of activity, how do you swab? If you drop the weight in the bell, and pull it through to finish at the barrel, you are spreading water in random patterns in the upper joint, and forming numerous tracks to every tone-hole. The goal must be for the water to stay in the bottom of the bore (thumbrest side) and run in a single stream out the bell. Always swab from the barrel to the bell, so that the trickle, stream, river, whatever, is encouraged to follow a single track out the bell. When condensation runs out the bell this is a good sign!

Does your clarinet have a hard time breaking bad habits? You can start with a clean slate by lightly oiling the bore (wipe all the unabsorbed oil out) then playing for a few minutes at a time alternating with swabbing barrel to bell (clarinet assembled without mouthpiece). When the clarinet has learned what to do with condensation, the track will remain even when you put it on a clarinet peg at an orchestra gig. Your reformed habits of swabbing, how you hold the clarinet and set the clarinet down will pay off big-time the next time you play Debussy, and you will not need the cigarette paper any longer!