Klarinet Archive - Posting 000260.txt from 1994/05

From: Martin Pergler <pergler@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: reeds
Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 12:02:43 -0400

Perhaps not as "procedurally correct" as Tom's described experiment, but
I make it a point to try _every_ reed for some period of time. After
taking it out of the box, I lightly sand the bottom, and play for
about 5 minutes, and then put it away in my reed holder. During home
practice, when I take a reed (often randomly chosen from the holder)
I don't give up on it for at least 10 minutes. Usually, even when I
hate the look of it after five minutes I'm so engrossed in the music
that I've forgotten that, and usually I've developed a reasonably decent
sound. Then I scrape for response, etc. Thinking back at it now,
the only _reasonably reliable_ visual indicators that a new reed will
not become decent that I've discovered are
1) Completely green. I put these in a bottom drawer, and I'll try
them again new year.
2) Cracked.
Of course, by no means all other reeds become wonderful. And I wish
I knew why. However, my point is that I think I'm forgetful enough
:) to forget any visual bias I might have while giving every new reed its
chance.

In particular, I used to discard quite quickly reeds with an asymettrical
cut on the "bark" side (is this the correct term?), and reeds with a
strongly assymetrical pattern in apparent thickness when held up to the
light. But some of my friendliest reeds have had these "flaws".

Comments welcome, Martin. Note I'm at best a half-decent amateur.

-------------------------------------------------------
Martin Pergler pergler@-----.edu
Grad student, Mathematics
Univ. of Chicago

On Mon, 16 May 1994, Tom Ascher wrote:

> I have an idea for both a "thought" experiment, and possibly one that
> could actually be performed. What if there was some means by
> which we could play reeds without looking at them? What if the only
> way we had for judging a reed was by how it plays, not by how it looks?
> Procedure: take a new box of reeds, open
> it and visually inspect all of the reeds and make a determination based
> on appearance as to how the reeds were likely to play. Then, play all
> of the same reeds over a period of time WITHOUT looking to see which
> reed is which. I don't know how to do this latter part. Is it possible
> to mount a reed to the mouthpiece without looking? Or have a friend do
> it?! Has anyone done such an experiment? I wonder how many reeds are
> discarded based on visual inspection, rather than how they actually play?!