You’ve made it to the end of the year, you’re packing up your classroom, and you’re wondering how to keep your Orff instruments safe in storage for the summer. Sound familiar? Let’s talk about Orff storage!
First, and easiest, is to keep those instruments from being stacked on top of one another. Unless you have the Sonor Smart Series, which is designed to be stacked for compact storage, barred instruments can be damaged if stacked. Pegs can be bent, bars can be scratched, and the weight of another instrument can damage a resonator box.
Be sure your instruments are away from anything wet. Often floors get cleaned over the summer, so be sure your instruments are far away from that process.
It’s a good idea to take all the bars off your instruments and give them a good dusting at the end of the year. To keep them nice after a good cleaning, you can cover them with paper, fabric, or these Basic Beat Dust Covers!
In high humidity or heat, what you can see with rosewood bars is a change in the tuning. Because heat can cause an expansion in the very carefully shaped wood, the pitch of each bar can change. As we know, that can make a once lovely sounding instrument unpleasant and unusable. Replacement bars for those instruments can eat into an already limited budget, so we want to keep them sounding beautiful!
When it comes to the resonator box, they are a little more resilient in that any warping wouldn’t cause changes to the pitch of the instrument. That said, heat expansion could result in the seams separating or the bars not fitting properly. Resonator boxes are not always replaceable, depending on the brand of instrument you have, so that would be a major loss.
With an investment of this size, you want those instruments in great condition for years and years. That’s super possible, but to keep your kids playing and learning, they really need to be in a secure, climate-controlled environment. Sometimes the media center, where much of the school’s technology is stored, is a good solution for summer storage. Sometimes the front office or a section of the school where there will be staff can also be a temporary home to protect these valuable resources.
With a little planning and communication with anyone who might be in your classroom for the summer, you can keep your instruments safe and sounding amazing for years to come.
Liz Hartley spent nine years in the elementary classroom in North Carolina and began as a National Sales Consultant with West Music in 2022. She graduated from Wake Forest University with a degree in saxophone performance, then went on to receive her master’s in music education with a concentration in choral conducting from the University of Florida. She holds her first Orff level from Appalachian State and is a member of AOSA and her local chapter, Central Carolina. She served as the music director for the Justice Theater Project’s summer camps for five years and continues to serve on their events committee. When she isn’t up to her elbows in music education, Liz loves to dance, performing in recitals with other adults throughout the year.
