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Hi all.

I have a serious question.

I'm a vocalist/guitarist. I teach elementary.

This past year I have purchased tons of instruments for the music classroom. These include:

25 ukuleles (which hang on the wall), 2 guitars, 1 baritone ukulele, 15 wooden Orff instruments, a cajon, and 4 african drums.

Unfortunately, I'm in a city school with terrible climate control. And I mean terrible. Cold and not humid in the winter, hot and very humid in the summer.

Well, I just got into school today and saw on my temp gauge that the humidity is 18&37;. That's enough to kill wooden instruments...to snap guitars like twigs!

I walked around and checked them all and, sure enough, my cajon has cracks all over it and my travel guitar is warping.

I can't think of anything I can do about this. I'm starting to think that I'm just in a school that can't have instruments. There's no way they'd let me run a humidifier...and my room's t...See More
3rd year Yikes. The back of my travel guitar has a big split right down the middle of it.
Feb 18, 2015
Michele I would suggest using a small humidifier and just keep it running during the days. At one point, I got permission to take all my wooden instruments home during the summer to keep them out of the extreme heat.

Just as an FYI, our school's insurance company last year was not happy to see the instruments not taken care of properly regarding h...See More
Feb 18, 2015
Other ways to humidify individual instruments I teach strings - and there are instrument humidifiers sold called "dampit". I can't create links here, but if you do a google search it will come right up.

Basically they are a sponge. You soak them with water and keep the dampit in the f hole during the winter months. The wood of the instrument soaks up the nearby moisture. ...See More
Feb 18, 2015
Thanks everyone. Principal bought a humidifier! My amazing principal bought me a classroom humidifier!
Feb 23, 2015


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