Hey everyone! :]
I have a Gemeinhardt piccolo that I ordered from a store in Maryland. It was brand new when I bought it. This was probably 2 years ago. I was wondering how often I should get my pads replaced? Some of mine look like they need to be replaced, but I wasn't sure. I want to get my piccolo worked on before school & all the football games start. Another issues is that one of my keys is sort of bent a little bit- I'm not exactly sure how to explain which key it is, but I'll try. It's the little key you can use to play B flat that's next to the pinky key for your left hand. The actual part that's bent though, is the part of the key that lifts up when you push the key [I hope that makes sense]. I took it to a guy to have it fixed, & he bent it back somewhat, but it's still bent a little bit. It doesn't really affect my playing, but he also put a piece of tape under the part that lifts up to help correct the problem, & he did that on another one of my keys, too. It's kind of strange, but it works, but I was just wondering if maybe it would be better for me to get the keys replaced or something?

Also, I'm a pretty good player, but I have some tuning issues. I expect that everyone does with piccs, but I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me? I work with a tuner a couple days out of the week. What happens is, I tune to an A natural [above the staff, but not the really high one] & it's always sharp, so I pull out. Then when that's in tune, basically all of my other notes are not in tune. Especially my notes on the staff & the high D upwards. Those notes are REALLY flat. I know to roll out when I'm playing them to make them go sharper, but the problem is I can't roll out enough to play them in tune. I think my cork is in too much & I know that also affects the tuning of my picc. So I'm curious- if I push my cork out to where it's supposed to be, will that help correct my problem? I know that if you shorten or lengthen the piccolo by adjusting the cork, it changes the overall pitch, but I don't remember which way fixes sharp & flat.

Thanks for reading all of this & helping me! :]

Ok, I'm not really sure if my pads are affecting my quality, but I have a couple that have some parts of the pad [almost like strings] hanging off. I'd like to take my picc to a professional technician, but I think my mom would be reluctant to do so. The man we usually take it to does a pretty good job & he doesn't charge a lot, so my mom likes him. What happened last time when we took a picc to the store [mind you, it was hers, which is like 30 years old] it came back with a lot of scratches on the silver & stuff, which really upset her. I'm just not sure how to convince her to take my picc to a reputed shop that does professional repairs, because she really likes the other guy & the stores charge a lot for stuff like that. And frankly, I think we would both feel bad if we didn't take my picc to him, even though he would never know it had problems unless we told him.

I also need to make sure that I have it for the first day of school, but all the rest of this month I have band camp, so I need it for then. I mean, I can always march on flute, but it's a lot easier on picc.

Thanks for the tips, too! :]