 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: krawfish3x
Date: 2003-07-26 18:15
i was playing today and i pulled out a reed and it wouldnt stop squeeking so i took it and i trimmed it, it still continued squeeking so i adjusted it a little more and decided that this reed was trash. since i was just going to throw it away i figured id mess with it a little more just to have fun and i took my reed knife and cut lines the width of the reed(that were acctually visable cuts). to my amazement the reed played like new. can anyone explain this?
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Author: DezzaG
Date: 2003-07-27 12:44
I do this on the underside of the reed every now and again, tried it after reading it in an article in the Clarinet magazine, works well at freeing the reed. I also do some diagonals above the horizontal lines!
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Author: Avie
Date: 2003-07-31 20:52
I agree Karel. The explaination of the cuts are very interesting but vague. Please explain so we can experiment. Thanks.
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Author: krawfish3x
Date: 2003-08-01 02:39
i was acctually intending to use this reed to show my buddies the specific parts of the reed(example: the heart, the vamp, etc.) so i carved lines around the heart of the reed and then decided to play it and it played great.
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Author: Karel
Date: 2003-08-01 08:57
Thanks, but a little more detail please unless you want to patent this. From the description the cuts are on the back of the reed? In what direction do they run, how many of them did you make, and how deep?
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Author: John Scorgie
Date: 2003-08-01 17:12
krawfish --
Chances are you had a warped reed. Your cuts relieved some of the stress and allowed the reed to flatten out and work properly.
BTW, some warps are amenable to correction; others are fatal.
General rule on warped reeds: when in doubt, throw it out.
I don't recall any commercial reeds which had the bark area cut laterally, although the old Chiron Vibrator reeds had several longitudinal grooves through the entire bark area. Maybe you will start a new trend.
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Author: Wes
Date: 2003-08-01 19:05
This is an old reed trick that can work to free up a reed. Since I have such great luck with V12s, I don't use it, however. I've used it in the past, especially on tenor sax reeds, where the reed would not respond well in the lower notes. It is kind of uncontrollable, as the depth of the cuts is not always precise.
The explanation is that your cutting the lines across the back or heart of the reed gives it less stiff and more flexibile, allowing it to vibrate more freely. By not removing cane but only cutting across the reed, the mass of the reed is still present and it allows the reed to vibrate at low frequencies, which was apparently a help in your case. Good luck!
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