 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: janlynn
Date: 2011-10-26 16:19
so my teacher gave a box of 5 reeds she had for a long time. I assume they are well seasoned.
they all play pretty good - but one is the best reed ive ever played. I think I want to use it at our ensemble/solo performance.
If I just keep that one tucked away until its time, will it still work as well as I find it now?
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Author: TJTG
Date: 2011-10-26 19:07
Reeds change in response and resistance in different humidity, pressure, and temperature. I often will be practicing on a wonderful reed in a practice room, walk over to my lesson, and have it play different, or not well at all. This happens because his room is at different temp.
This isn't to say your reed won't play. I have a batch of "performance reeds" they all play rather well. I just expect, and you should too, a little variation.
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2011-10-26 19:36
What will the weather be like?
TJTG is pretty much right on target. Sounds like he's been through it all and had his share of reeds going crazy.
Most people that have played for a few years, know that one day a reed is magical and the next day it's in the trash.
One time at Peabody Conservatory Iggie Gennusa and myself couldn't find a decent reed. Next to Peabody was a music store called Teds. We bought about 12 boxes of Vandorens and not a single reed played, most likely due to weather. He was so angry he became ill. His stomach was in knotts. He packed up his horns during my lesson and went home. I really didn't care because I wasn't able to great a reed to respond. Long story short I bought a mess of reeds at another music store and they were much better.
Sometimes bad reeds can come to life, but not very often and a good reed can go bad while playing.
A friend, won't say his name, was going on tour to Germany to perform with his orchestra. 4 months before the tour he sent around 30 boxes of reeds to a friend living in Germany. This was actually a smart move, getting the reeds settled for the conditions.
Reeds can make you so angry you can get sick.
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Author: William
Date: 2011-10-26 21:33
"Thirty" boxes of reeds just to find a "good one". I am so happy to be playing Forestones and not have to go through all of that money and time. Every reed plays right out of the "box" and they last indifinately, unaffected by climate change or weather.
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Author: kenb
Date: 2011-10-27 00:26
"Reeds change in response and resistance in different humidity, pressure, and temperature."
You forgot to mention planetary alignment.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2011-10-27 16:21
And the family cat or that ghost of the Civil War soldier who walks his peg-leg around on the ceiling upside down in the middle of the night can put the magic whammy on the reeds, too. I'm an amateur, but fwiw, I don't save my best reeds. If I get hit by a dump truck tomorrow, they'll all go to waste. When I luck into an especially good reed, I play the gee-whillickers out of it and enjoy it as long as it lasts.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: davyd
Date: 2011-10-27 18:37
The perfect reed was the one you accidentally broke, or so says someone.
In addition to atmospheric and supernatural issues, the type of ensemble may be an issue too: a reed that works in a lesson or a quintet session might not be so good in orchestra or band, or so says another someone.
What you ate or drank most recently might also have an impact, or so says yet another someone.
Different mouthpiece, different ligature, different instrument -- all variability factors as well. Allergies? A cold? The list of challenges is endless.
I defer to the Experts and the Expertise. But I've concluded that no small part of a reedplayer's success is based on how well he/she can overcome the reed. You can do an infinite amount of adjusting in the practice room, but when you're out there on stage, it's just you and the cane, and it's not a fair fight.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2011-10-27 18:54
If you broke the reed in properly and keep it in a humidity controlled climate it might just play as good each and every time. I suggest using a Rico Vitalizer pack in an air tight bag. I use that technique for my reeds and they play very consistent each and every time. I prefer the #58 myself. I keep my orchestra reeds in one bag and rotate them every time I play and I have a separate bag with my "chamber music" reeds, which I use 5-6 times a year. I play them each for a few minutes each day for a few days before I need to perform on them so I can get re acclimated to them. They remain very consistent for me. ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Elkwoman46
Date: 2011-10-27 19:03
Some years ago I bought an oboe on eBay and secured vintage new old stock reeds. I followed all the advice about soaking the reed in a half inch of water for five minutes and got a good start on it, and in due time it, the reed, just quit. So I put the next reed in...mind you, these all looked absolutely identical, for real. I mean really identical to stress my point from the same obvious batch. Holding the two together, one could not see a single difference.
But when I tried to play it, I could produce no sound, and I felt like I was learning all over again. Well, then I saw why all oboe players are doing two things: playing oboe and making reeds by themselves, investing a life long amount of time in learning, making, and using their own reeds...because it is so touchy.
I did learn that you can re-use a reed if you let it dry out for about a year.
But it won't last quite as long the second time around.
I say all that to say, I agree with those people here who have had these weird experiences of reeds that just don't play.
And I am sure they look just like another.
Perhaps the problem is also about our usage of the previous reed. There must be something to it...we get so used to the exact function of it, that another reed might be to us like a foreign object. It is not functioning at the pressures we gave the other one.
I wonder how to get around this huge dilemma myself. Is it really just a matter of working with the new reed until we figure it out or is the fault with the reed? I definitely think there are bad batches of reeds of course. Any wood piece varies from the next.
I just want to add, I too, stand amazed when I think about reed experiences that I have had...like the oboe experience above...seriously, same batch of reeds, identical under scrutiny and all that, yet was not like the other one at all when trying it.
Perhaps soaking and breaking in a reed is a possible solution to new reed problems, even if it looks identical and came from the same batch of wood?--->Or is there even more we can do to condition it?
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Author: Elkwoman46
Date: 2011-10-27 19:12
Dear Ed, Regarding your mention of a Rico Vitalizer--I have never heard about something like this...interesting. Thanks so much!
Do these dry out? How often do they need replacing?
Thanks.
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Author: Mary Jo
Date: 2011-10-27 23:27
The best reed I can ever recall is the old V2 I found in my old Edgeware case, a survivor of my little brother's clarinet years. I love that reed, even if Tom played it back in the mid-1970's.
This perfect-edged reed is my favorite, lying somewhere amongst my piles of sax and clarinet reeds. For a cheap reed, it sings with my Brilhart mouthpiece and reckless, though sincere playing style.
Some scoff, others curl lips and tense stomachs, contemplating wood kept years in a garage, several basements, and now my music room. They must be jealous.
I'm happy as an innocent musical savage, fortunate just months ago to find a similarily gifted contra alto reed in an old Bundy case, left by the tuneful gods who honored me and saved a tree.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-10-28 06:38
Elkwoman46 wrote:
> ... I followed all the advice about soaking the
> reed in a half inch of water for five minutes and got a good
> start on it, and in due time it, the reed, just quit.
New reeds will begin to lose responsiveness if they, especially their tips, become waterlogged, which they do much more quickly than older reeds.
> So I put
> the next reed in...mind you, these all looked absolutely
> identical, for real.
Machine made reeds (I don't know how the oboe reeds you had were made) from the same manufacturer are generally cut uniformly enough that you need better measuring instruments than your eyeballs to detect dimensional differences. It's harder to see grain differences in an oboe reed because it's two blades lashed together - harder to see through by holding it up to a light. And even holding a clarinet reed up to a light and seeing the grain won't give you a very reliable idea of how well it will vibrate on your mouthpiece.
> But when I tried to play it, I could produce no sound, and I
> felt like I was learning all over again. Well, then I saw why
> all oboe players are doing two things: playing oboe and making
> reeds by themselves, investing a life long amount of time in
> learning, making, and using their own reeds...because it is so
> touchy.
And commercially made oboe reeds - especially relative to clarinet reeds - are expensive. Still, some oboists (and bassoonists) prefer to have someone else hand-make their reeds for them, getting the benefit of hand-made control (the reed maker's) and time saving (the player's). One thing that happens in the process of making reeds by hand is that a lot of the breaking in - soaking and drying and adjusting - happens during the process. This isn't true for machine-made reeds whether double reeds or the familiar mass-produced single reeds many of us use on clarinet and sax.
>
> I did learn that you can re-use a reed if you let it dry out
> for about a year.
>
Really, only a day or two.
> But it won't last quite as long the second time around.
>
Not necessarily true - and by the third or fourth time around, especially if you know a little about adjusting the reed for changes that have happened to it, it will last much longer at a stretch.
> Perhaps the problem is also about our usage of the previous
> reed. There must be something to it...we get so used to the
> exact function of it, that another reed might be to us like a
> foreign object. It is not functioning at the pressures we gave
> the other one.
Especially if you tend to play a favorite reed too far past its prime - you get used to compensating for its loss of elasticity.
>
> I wonder how to get around this huge dilemma myself. Is it
> really just a matter of working with the new reed until we
> figure it out or is the fault with the reed?
Depends a little on how much pain it causes you to just throw a reed away. But beyond a fairly narrow range of response and tone quality, a reed out of the box either plays or doesn't. Sometimes they can be adjusted (a little judicious scraping here or there with your favorite tool to improve the vibrating characteristics). Sometimes, either because it's just not a good piece of cane or because we've made one too many tries at improving it (you can't put wood back once you scrape it off), we just have to give up on it and toss it.
> I definitely
> think there are bad batches of reeds of course. Any wood piece
> varies from the next.
>
Exactly.
>
> Perhaps soaking and breaking in a reed is a possible solution
> to new reed problems...
Yes, but how to do that is a major point of discussion (just do a search here), and some players get almost mystical in their approach to it.
Karl
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2011-10-28 12:51
Do not soak a new reed for long at all!!! 5 minutes is an eternity for a new reed, and the reed will almost certainly warp a lot easier if you do that. Once the reed is more broken in, the center of the reed won't waterlog as easily, and the reed will dry evenly. If the reed is oversoaked early on, the center of the reed will stay wet while the outside is dry, and it can easily warp.
The reed vitalizer helps slow down the drying process, thus eliminating warpage for most reeds.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Elkwoman46
Date: 2011-10-28 14:49
So, during the time I acquired the oboe, the advice I read online was not good for soaking an oboe reed tip five minutes? It seemed to be the thing where I was attending online, and so forth. I was doing my best to follow the advice given. But regarding the reeds I bought for the oboe, it was an opportune moment to buy high quality reeds at a great price because they were vintage but new old stock...
Anyway, I am ever happy to read these messages here because it does make sense to not over soak a reed, but an oboe reed versus a clarinet reed are all two different things of course.
I can play a dry reed on my clarinet---I'm not sure if that is so easy on an oboe.
Thanks Karl and David for the comments...very much appreciated.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-10-28 15:22
Elkwoman46 wrote:
> But
> regarding the reeds I bought for the oboe, it was an opportune
> moment to buy high quality reeds at a great price because they
> were vintage but new old stock...
>
Karen, I didn't understand this the first time you wrote it - what is "vintage but new old stock?"
BTW, as I implied in my other post, a five minute soak is too long for any new cane reed. I do know oboists and bassoonists who soak their seasoned reeds for periods that may well be as long as five minutes - I've never timed one of them. But, again, hand-made reeds go through most or all of their "break-in" while they're being made, which is a multi-step process that involves several cycles of soaking, working (cutting at various stages) then drying.
Karl
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2011-10-29 17:18
To Elkwomen, sorry it took so long. I can't speak for oboe reeds but I agree, 5 minutes is way to long at any stage to soak a clarinet reed. I "soak" my reeds for just a few seconds, literally. It's on my web site reed pages. As far as how long the Vitalizers last, mine last me for over a year, two years in many cases even though they say they will last a month or so. The reason is simple, I never allow them to sit out in the open air so they don't dry out. When I say never I really mean never. I always keep them enclosed in an air tight freezer bag. I take my reeds out a choice the one I want to use, put the reeds back into the bag with the Vitalizer and close it off all with in a minute or two at the most. If you never leave your reeds or the Vitalizer sit in the open air they will not change or dry out. It works for me. ESP
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Author: Elkwoman46
Date: 2011-10-29 17:51
Hi, Ed! I really appreciate your comments about the Vitalizer and what you do with your reeds. Here in the South, grin, that is a scary thought...keeping something wet all the time...humidity, mildew go hand in hand...grin.
So, I might assume that there are buffers therein, or even products that are close to mouth wash substances to keep that from happening, perhaps?
I think I will get it all sorted out on what will work here. Contrary to what I had learned, dry wood is not a good thing, even with violins...aging of woods is great, but not drying out.
Thank you again, everyone for helping me.
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