Klarinet Archive - Posting 000480.txt from 2002/06

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl]"Buzzy" sound ...
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 20:42:31 -0400

I buy commercial reeds, rarely modify a reed (beyond soaking it and stropping
it on a piece of typing paper before I use the reed for the first time), and
rarely throw one away before it wears out. That's mostly simple laziness:
I'll practice, or I'll mess with reeds, but I generally don't want to do
both. I'd rather modify my embouchure than fool around with the reed. But,
if I did want a reed altered, Shadow Cat provides custom reed-modification
for me, free of charge. The only problem is that she's a temperamental
artiste, who modifies the reeds to suit her own preferences, regardless of
mine.

One day a few months ago, just as I had finished rinsing my reed and
mouthpiece, and had dried the mouthpiece and put it away, the telephone rang.
Someone wanted information that I had to go into another room to get.
Evidently I forgot all about the reed case. I probably left it lying on the
low table next to my music stand. Shadow Cat, ever-vigilant, no doubt
decided that leaving the reed case out was something like leaving a pair of
scuffed shoes in the hall next to the hotel room door.

Later in the day, I heard a strange crunching noise, looked around my office
and saw Shadow Cat crouching under my piano bench where she was busily
gnawing away at something. She didn't want me to see what it was and
*growled* at me when I reached for it: too late, because she had already
significantly modified my favorite Mitchell Lurie Premium. I identified it
from the stub, after a tug-of-war. Still later, she went into my closet,
where she vomited the rest of the remains into one of my shoes. In the
meantime, I found the reed case where she'd hidden it under the piano, but
there were only two reeds (of the original four) left in it. Next morning, I
found the Vandoren floating in the toilet.

Nobody can tell me cats don't think.

Lelia

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Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 14:31:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: 13feline@-----.com (Shadow Cat)
Subject: Re: [kl] Re: "Buzzy" sound ...
Message-ID: <shred-allreeds@-----.com>

I'm making my stupid pet human type this. Great Bast, the creature imagines
that I consider myself *her servant*! Shoes in the hallway, indeed! Of all
the nerve! She really is getting above herself these days and I shall have
to do something about it. Good humans are hard to find. She should be
grateful that I captured, interrogated, tortured, and tried those reeds,
found them guilty, and executed them, because they were dangerous vermin, of
course. I will exterminate the others ASAP.

Ssssst,
Shadow Cat

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