Klarinet Archive - Posting 000507.txt from 2000/04

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Adjusting reeds - QUICKLY and PERMANENTLY
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 05:35:55 -0400

On Wed, 12 Apr 2000 08:59:51 +0100 (BST),
roger.shilcock@-----.uk said, when tidied
up a bit:

> On Tue, 11 Apr 2000 GrabnerWG@-----.com wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 4/11/00 4:36:56 AM Central Daylight Time,
> > Tony@-----.uk writes:
> >
> > > All this was intended to be a little bit tongue-in-cheek, though
> > > certainly there was such a device on sale for a bit. You could
> > > make either one or three small incisions, the first being in the
> > > middle of the reed and the other, optional two on either side of,
> > > and parallel to the first. If you made one incision you separated
> > > the right from the left side of the reed a small distance down
> > > from the tip, and if you made three incisions you divided the
> > > breadth of the reed into four 'wafers', as you called them.
> >
> > I have found the edge of a metal music stand to be extremely useful
> > in this process of "splitting" the reed.
> >
> > I am OFTEN seen at rehearsals using this technique.
> >
> > The reeds that I use this technique on are REMARKABLY improved. Once
> > I use this valuable technique......I NEVER complain about the
> > "vibrational abilities" of this particular reed ever again.
> >
> > Thank you Tony, for bringing this arcane technique to light.
>
> I've always found accidental splits of this kind a *cause* of squeaks.
> Surely you gentlemen are joking????
> Roger S.

Well, Roger; he was, I wasn't;-)

To take your remarks seriously, though:

I myself have never accidentally split a reed in this precise way. I
*have* split reeds more crudely, by knocking them against a music stand
by mistake, say; but so seldom that I suspect the number of times that
you have done so is also quite small.

The few reeds that I've split in this way have usually been 'ruined'.
You say that those in your (probably similarly small) sample have
'squeaked'. Perhaps just a matter of terminology?

I found that some reeds were improved by the more precise technique, and
very few were ruined by it, if it was done carefully. I suppose I never
did it enough to learn exactly which reeds were improved significantly
-- which doesn't mean that it couldn't be a useful technique for someone
who did take the trouble to learn that. (You might only use it very
infrequently, but get a good reed out of it when you did.)

Anyway, I sort of forgot about it.

But I think the other gentleman who wrote about it, Chris I think, gave
it a poorer press than it deserves. It's worthwhileness depends on its
being applied to the appropriate reed, just like scraping. I remember
hearing a student say that scraping reeds was a useless thing to do
because they always ended up sounding worse.

Admittedly I didn't see Chris in his powder-blue leisure suit.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE www.gmn.com/artists/welcome.asp
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Pets just die on you, where's the fun in that?

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