Make the most of... your accessories cupboard
Or rather, what should be in it? By accessories, we mean clarinet reeds, ukulele strings, headphone adaptors, a screwdriver - you get the idea! So when you open the box/drawer/cupboard to do a few emergency repairs, what would be the most useful things to keep in it?
Accessories are a crucial factor in keeping the ship rolling. They need to be on hand and available there and then. After all, if a clarinet reed breaks, you can’t play the clarinet. If your jack lead is broken, you don’t want to be spending your entire music lesson searching for a new one. Make sure that if you keep spares of anything improtant, and that you know that they work.
And if it’s a quick repair or fix that needs doing, if you can’t put hands on what you need straight away, the chances are you won't get around to doing it at all!
Obviously what you need to have available depends completely on the type of music programme you offer at your school. So the following is designed to be the start of a checklist that you can add to create your own musical accessories shopping list, and perhaps before going shopping, a chance to clear out those accessories storage areas first to make space for some new ones. You never know what you might find in there!
For an instrumental programme:
- Reeds
- Instrument neck straps/harnesses
- Name labels
- Cork grease
- Cleaning cloths
- Valve oil
- Spare strings
- Trumpet mouthpiece remover
- Spare mouthpieces and ligatures
- Spare bows
- Shoulder rests/chin rests and chin rest tightening tool
- Rosin
For your classroom instruments:
- Spare cables - new and not previously loaned out so you can rely on them working
- Headphone splitters and adaptors
- Headphones! Always order more than you think you need
- Ukulele strings
- Spare picks, lots of them!
- Wood glue
- Set of screwdrivers
- Batteries for semi-acoustic instruments
- Whiteboard markers (where do these go?!)
- Guitar tuner
- USB stick/SD card
- Spare (working) powerboard
Use this as a starter for your own list; maybe keep it on your noticeboard or on the door of your accessories cupboard so you can update it from time to time.