Klarinet Archive - Posting 000365.txt from 2003/05

From: "Bill Semple" <wsemple@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] More reeds...
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 11:20:05 -0400

Yep. Do nothing. Play one reed that performs well right out of the box,
exclusively until it drops dead, then play the one . . .

By the time one adds up the number of hours spent fixing, adjusting,
preparing, etc. and instead sold real estate, you could afford all of the
boxes of new reeds you could ever want.

p.s. this is not an exactly orginal idea. Benny Goodman once told my father
that he never worked on reeds. He got so many from the manufacturers that he
would find one that sounded fine, and then tootled away, throwing away
entire boxes if he couldn't find one that worked perfectly first time
around.

William T. Semple
Office: 202-364-2466
Home: 540-364-4823
Cell: 540-903-6645
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Pay" <Tony@-----.uk>
Subject: Re: [kl] More reeds...

> On Mon, 19 May 2003 02:30:58 +0000, resurgereweb@-----.com said:
>
> > > From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
> > >
> > > On Sat, 17 May 2003 11:38:11 +0000, resurgereweb@-----.com said:
> > >
> > > > ...you *do* rotate through at least 4 reeds, right?...
> > >
> > > No, I don't.
> > >
> > > Should I?
> >
> > 'zup to you.
>
> Yeah, that's right.
>
> > We don't morally censure... :-)
>
> I'll assume that the 'we' here is, you and the mouse in your pocket.
> The attitude can get pretty close to moral censure in some people.
>
> My advice to clarinet players is to try the suggestions, including the
> ones you make up for yourselves -- and let's face it, most of the ones
> out there are pretty obvious -- but then, to decide which of them works
> for you on a basis that is independent of the authority, or supposed
> authority, of the person making the suggestion.
>
> That it works nowadays for Yo-yo Meyer-Leister, or used to work in the
> past for Giggly-Bonny Marcellus -- never mind about whether it'll work
> in the future for resurgereweb or his mouse -- doesn't mean it'll work
> for you.
>
> Indeed, you could argue that what's important about the process of
> trying different procedures doesn't really lie in the details of what
> you do about reeds as an end result of that process. Despite what some
> people may say, *no* simple procedure is guaranteed to produce excellent
> results.
>
> It's rather that undertaking the process forces you to assess what a
> reed's 'working' really means to you. A lot of people fail just by not
> knowing that, in detail. They're the sort of people who play on
> 'planks' in a resonant acoustic, for example.
>
> On a lighter note, having said that most of the suggestions out there
> are pretty obvious, I've tried, when I was younger:
>
> Rubbing them with corn oil (resists those saliva deposits), and
>
> Boiling them in milk (for that creamy sound)
>
> ...just as a small sample.
>
> Anyone got anything *really* original?
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> ... "Bother", said Pooh, as the read/write heads flew across the room.
>
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>
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