Cleaning your trumpet or cornet regularly is important for prolonging the life of the instrument and letting you sound your best. I usually recommend cleaning your instrument every couple months. It’s a basic part of routine maintenance and only takes a few minutes.

Before getting started, you should assemble everything you’ll need:

• A bathtub or large sink filled with enough warm water to cover the entire instrument. I also add a drop of dish soap to help loosen things.
• Cleaning snake (HW Products makes a nice cleaning snake that comes in a set with a valve casing brush)
• Valve casing brush
• Mouthpiece brush (like this one)
• Slide grease
• Valve oil

Once you have your tools and supplies ready, it’s time to take apart the trumpet. Start by removing the valves and set them aside in a safe place where they won’t roll off the counter. Most trumpets have a number on each valve indicating which of the three valves it is. If they don’t, make sure you remember which is which so that you put them back in the right valve casing.

After you remove the valves, unscrew the bottom valve caps and remove the tuning slide and three valve slides. Be careful when removing the slides. If a slide is stuck, don’t pull too hard and don’t use pliers or other tools, which can easily damage the trumpet and create a costly repair bill for you. You might try using a cloth looped through the end of the slide and pull with medium force, but don’t pull too hard. If it’s still stuck, take it to a repair shop for help.

After your trumpet is in pieces, put all the parts EXCEPT the valves in the tub to soak for 15 minutes or so – long enough to loosen the grime inside the tubing. Then, pull the snake through all the tubing and the valve casing brush through the valve casings. Rinse each part to get the soapy water off, then dry them and set them on a towel.

To clean the valves, use a little dish soap and warm running water to clean the bottom part of the valves, but don’t get the top part of the valve wet – water can ruin the felt pads. After rinsing the soapy water off the bottom part of the valves, let them air dry so that little bits of lint don’t get stuck on the valves.

To clean the mouthpiece, wash it in warm soapy water, use the mouthpiece brush to brush out the inside and rinse.

Once everything is dry, it’s time to put the trumpet back together. Start by wiping some slide grease on the tuning slide and second valve slide (and the first valve slide if it doesn’t have a thumb hook), and then slide them into place. If you think it takes too much work to slide them in and out, you might add a couple drops of valve oil. They should slide easily but not to the point where they’d fall out on their own. Instead of slide grease, use valve oil on the first (if it has a thumb hook) and third valve slides. The first and third slides should move very easily so that you can move them while playing. Then, screw on the bottom valve caps, put a few drops of oil on the bottom part of each valve and insert the valves into their casings, making sure the number on the valve faces towards the mouthpiece (it should lock into place if you try and rotate the valve).

Lastly, insert your mouthpiece and blow some air through the horn to make sure that everything is working right. If you find that you can’t blow into it at all, it probably means that you mixed up the valves or one of the valves is not seated in the casing in the right direction.

Don’t forget to clean up your tools and supplies and wipe out the bathtub/sink.

To clean/polish the outside of your instrument, use a chemically treated soft polishing cloth. Use a lacquer polishing cloth for lacquered instruments (shiny brass color) or a silver polishing cloth for silver plated instruments.