Klarinet Archive - Posting 000043.txt from 2006/07

From: "David B. Niethamer" <dnietham@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] There were once a few good reeds
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:17:43 -0400


On Jun 26, 2006, at 3:30 PM, Lacy, Edwin wrote:

> (SNIP) I have never had a
> desire to make reeds for the clarinet or saxophone. Since it is
> possible to buy single reeds that will work, with a certain rather
> minimal amount of adjustment, it is amazing to me that some
> clarinetists
> want to spend the time, effort and trouble to make their reeds. That
> seems to me to be time that could be better spent in practicing, or
> other productive pursuits.
>
> I have never seen any convincing evidence that a player of a single
> reed
> instrument can make reeds that work better for them than the ones that
> can be purchased.
>
> I welcome all efforts to change my mind about this.
>
Sorry to weigh in late on this one. I started making reeds 25 years ago
as a busy orchestral player. The expense, frustration and uncertainty
of dealing with commercial reeds (read: Vandoren, purple boxes only in
those days) actually got in the way of spending practice time more
productively. There were also Mitchell Lurie reeds, and Olivieri and
Morre, but each had their own limitations and problems.

Ronald Vazquez alluded to one of the great advantages of making reeds,
which is longevity. While I haven't ever preserved and played on a reed
for many years, I have kept reeds in my active reed case for up to 18
months before they start to become unusable for much more than scale
practice. Another advantage, particularly if you start the process from
tube cane, is complete control of the dimensions of the blank
(thickness, width of the tip to match the mouthpiece), and the ability
to "cure" the blank before cutting the reed. This exposure of the cane
to the wet/dry cycle before cutting the reed minimizes warping (for me)
once the reed is cut.

While I was still an active orchestral player (weekly concerts and
rehearsals), I didn't find reed making to be all that time consuming.
One day a month to spend and hour reducing a tube to 8 blanks, and
another day to spend 1.5-2 hours actually making the reeds was all it
took for me. Between those two events was a daily routine of soaking
the blanks for 15 minutes or so, followed by flattening the backs of
the blanks on a file, which took about 10 minutes daily (3-7 days).
Once the reeds were cut, breaking them in became a part of the regular
practice routine.

Doing this once a month provided me with 2-3 reeds that I'd consider
acceptable to play in a concert, and another 2-3 that I could use in
practice. Even making your own, there are "duds" due to the variability
of the cane, even the best cane. Even if you get a bad tube, you'd
still have last month's reeds to play while you started over, and for
me that occurrence was rare. Instead of worrying over this week's new
box of reeds, you had the confidence that there were decent reeds "in
the bank" for whatever was coming up.

I did all this not for any exotic mouthpiece, but on a succession of
relatively "commercial" mouthpieces - refaced Gigliotti, Greg Smith,
Richard Hawkins, Vandoren M13Lyre, Walter Grabner. OK, all custom
except the Vandoren, but nothing out of the ordinary in terms of
facings, etc.

> Well, this is confusing to me. I am a woodwind doubler, and I use the
> reeds for all my instruments for a considerably longer time than most
> of
> the players I have encountered. My main instrument is the bassoon, and
> I also play and teach the oboe, and you simply HAVE to make reeds for
> these instruments. Almost every bassoonist and oboists wishes that it
> were possible to buy reeds that would work, but we almost invariably
> despair of finding commercial reeds that work.
>
I've often wondered why clarinetists would not be as interested as
double reed players in understanding their reeds and how they work, and
in potentially improving their reed supply if they could. Most
clarinetists seem to be content to play commercial reeds and complain
about them. Since single reeds are relatively simple compared to double
reeds, it doesn't take long to learn the basics. The rest is trial and
error ("experience").

> I remember well about 1970 when I was a graduate student at Indiana
> University, and Kalmen Opperman was hired to teach clarinet in the
> summer sessions for a few years. As those of my vintage and older will
> remember, he was the guru of clarinet reed making during that period.
> When he was at Indiana, all the clarinet players spent all their time
> in
> the practice rooms cutting, scraping, sanding, and otherwise agonizing
> over their cane and reeds. And, the level of clarinet playing went
> steadily down in all the ensembles during the same time.
>
Of course, if you spend all your time agonizing, and none of it
actually practicing, your skills might atrophy! A busy professional
player doesn't have time to agonize over reed perfection. In grad
school, when we'd complain about our reeds (the daily litany),
Russianoff would show no sympathy or patience. He'd say "you have to
play what's in your reed case." Meaning, shut up and get the job done.
Valuable professional advice, IMO. If that includes commercial reeds,
great. And in today's market, there are more viable commercial products
than in the past. But I think clarinetists should be more knowledgeable
about their reeds than they are, so they can make informed choices
about what they play.

BTW, I think Mr. Vazquez's book on reed making is the best there is. I
got mine after years of making reeds, and I still learned a few details
that experience hadn't taught me that were very valuable. I hope it
will come back into print someday.

David

David B. Niethamer
dnietham@-----.edu
http://members.aol.com/dbnclar1/index.html

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