Klarinet Archive - Posting 000175.txt from 1998/10

From: merlinw@-----.ca
Subj: Re: [kl] swapping reeds between sax/clar.
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 10:13:12 -0400

Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear about which reeds were cut with the same tooling. The tenor reeds that use the same cutters as the bass clarinet reeds are the standard Vandoren blue box tenor reeds, not the Java or V16.

BTW, I always thought that Java was a type of coffee.<G>

On 10/02/98 21:47:17 you wrote:

>Having read a bit of this thread, I did a highly unscientific sample
>today on the 4 reeds in the case of my bass clarinet student at U of
>Richmond. He had 3 Vandoren Bass Clarinet reeds, and one Vandoren Tenor
>reed (Java? - I thought that was a computer language - but I digress!)
>
>The Bass Cl and Tenor Sax reeds had the same length of blank, and the
>same profile (width at the butt and tip). The cut on the bass clarinet
>reeds was longer than on the Java Tenor sax reed, and cut straight across
>at the bottom of the cut (French cut?). The Java had a U shaped cut,
>shorter than the Bass Cl reeds, and played a bit "darker", with less of
>the reedy quality especially in the low register. The length of cut of
>the Java reed matched the window length of the Vandoren B44 mouthpiece,
>and the Bass clarinet reeds were longer. As someone who makes his reeds,
>making the cut longer than the window of the mpc is in general not
>helpful, at least for me. A reed cut properly to the length of the mpc
>window is more stable for me.

Merlin Williams
merlinw@-----.ca
http://www.netcom.ca/~merlinw
(A member of the Sax Ring!)

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