Humidity – Part I  

When you live in a place like central Wisconsin or Northern Michigan, it gets pretty darn dry in the winter.  Here’s why:

At temperatures above freezing, each time you raise the temperature 7 degrees you double the moisture-holding capacity of the air – and cut your humidity in half.

Although it may seem like our houses are protected from outside air, there’s actually a steady turnover of air cycling through your home.  And in the winter, that means your indoor air recently came in from the cold and was rapidly heated to room temperature.  So if you have 64% humidity at 32 degrees outside, that translates to 2% humidity if your indoor air is kept at 67 degrees.  (The average humidity of the Sahara desert is 3%!)

So what does that mean for your instrument? 

If you’re a brass player, not much.  The worst you’ll get is chapped lips.

Flute, sax, and plastic-bodied instrument players can breathe easy, too.

But if your instrument is constructed largely of wood, you’ll want to pay close attention to humidity.  An overly dry atmosphere can wreak havoc on wooden instrument bodies and parts.  When wooden parts dry out, they shrink.  This can change the tuning of your instrument, lead to ill-fitting parts, and in severe cases even lead to cracks in the wood.

What You Can Do to Protect Your Instrument From Wintertime Dryness 

Ideally, you’ll want to maintain a humidity level of 30% to keep your wooden instrument in top condition. 

One way to do this is to humidify your entire home – or at least the room in which your instrument is kept.  This will benefit more than just your instrument.  It’s also much healthier for you, and will help prevent dry skin nosebleeds and respiratory ailments.

Sometimes, though, maintaining that level of humidity just isn’t possible or practical.  But that doesn’t mean your instrument has to suffer.  

Here's how to protect your stringed instrument from low humidity:

If you play violin, guitar, or any stringed instrument, you will want to invest in a little device that humidifies your instrument from the inside.  There are several brands, but the most well-known is the Dampit.  It’s a little rubber tube filled with absorbent material.  You get it wet, squeeze it out, and place it in your instrument.  (In a violin you thread it through the f-hole;  there’s a plastic cap that keeps it from slipping down and getting lost. 

Since most cases don’t come with a built-in humidistat, the Dampit comes with a card equipped with a moisture-sensitive strip.  It’s easy to tell when your instrument is in the humidity “safe” range by comparing the color of the strip with several sample colors that correlate to different humidity levels.