Klarinet Archive - Posting 000337.txt from 2001/11

From: "Patricia Smith" <pattiesmith@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] How to make your reeds work
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 11:32:21 -0500

this has been written:

> We have had much conflicting advice about how to treat reeds to obtain
> maximum performance capabilities. However, I'm going to give you the
> six secret steps for treating reeds which will cause playing the
> clarinet to be so much more fun than you have ever experienced!
>
> 1. Place all your reeds in a small brown paper bag. (Plastic won't
> do - the reeds can't breathe.)
>
> 2. Take them to a cemetery at midnight on the night of a full moon.
>
> 3. Sprinkle the bag with a concoction of dried and powdered bat's
> wings and lizard tails.
>
> 4. Recite an appropriate incantation, or read a few passages from
> either Keith Stein's "The Art of Clarinet Playing" or William
> Stubbins' "The Art of Clarinetistry." (But don't read from both of
> them - your reeds will become hopelessly confused, and so will you.)
>
> 5. Throw the bag of reeds into a convenient open grave, and run away
> as fast as you can, never looking back.
>
> 6. Go home, find some other reed, and practice several hours.
>
> I'm sure you'll notice immediate improvement in your playing!

In the midst of trying this quite feasible solution to this timeless
bedevilment of clarinetists everywhere on earth, I realized that there is
one problem...how can you find "some other reed, and practice several hours"
if you put "all of your reeds in a paper bag" and throw them into an open
grave?

No doubt the ghosts of the great clarinetists of the past will come rushing
up to haunt me if I attempt to retrieve ANY of those bagged up reeds! ;-)

Patricia A. Smith
pattiesmith@-----.net

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