(We prefer to call it condensation, thank you very much.)

I played the clarinet as a child. More precisely, a person was hired to teach me the clarinet. I learned about reeds, and I met a guy who made his own. I learned that the oboe and the bassoon were double-reed instruments, and that gave me an awe of oboe and bassoon players that persists to this day. I learned to play the spooky Halloweenish tune that everyone learns on the clarinet.

I dealt with spit. No one mentions how much spit chatter there is in the brass and reed sections. It’s not perhaps the most pleasant aspect of music making, but people should be told about it before they get heavily involved. Spit makes the clarinet-playing experience more intimate, although not in a good way. (RTWT)