Klarinet Archive - Posting 001214.txt from 1998/09

From: "Merlin Williams" <merlinw@-----.ca>
Subj: [kl] swapping reeds between sax/clar.
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 12:24:11 -0400

> Perhaps I did non make myself clear.
> Although I have not personally played Soprano Sax reeds on clarinet, =
I have
> conducted a little experiment with my jazz band students in which the
> clarinet/saxophone players (my jazz students play clarinet, flute & all=
the
> saxes) used sax reeds on clarinet. This is what happened:
> Soprano reeds on B-flat clarinet played horrendously(sp?) out of =
tune and
> one of my students could not get a sound at all. They are too short and=
too
> narrow

Yes, soprano sax reeds are shorter. However, they are not narrower, they=
are in fact wider than clarinet reeds.
Given that they are too wide for the rails on a clarinet m/p, and the tap=
er of the reed is probably different, that would account for problems pla=
ying them.

> Alto Sax reeds on Alto Clarinet played out of tune on some notes

No big deal - alto clarinet reeds play out of tune on some notes too!

> Tenor reeds on Bass clarinet were great (Better for jazz!), I recom=
mend
> V16 #3 1/2

Well, according to Ralph Morgan, for several years Vandoren bass clarinet=
and tenor saxes were cut using the same tooling. This resulted in less =
than optimum tenor reeds that had to be messed around with to work proper=
ly.

Merlin Williams
http://www.netcom.ca/~merlinw

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