 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: KevinS
Date: 1999-11-09 03:42
How about some discussion on OLD reeds! I recently purchased an absolutely gorgeous matched set of Leblanc Dynamique clarinets on ebay. In the outer canvas case was a set of unsold tickets to the 1962 season of the Oak Park River Forest symphony, conducted by Milton Preves. There was also an uncashed check for $5.00 from February of 1963 for a season ticket. This alone was a treasure, however when I opened the original double case (Looks just like new) I found more treasures. 6 boxes of Vandoren Medium hard reeds. The boxes had hand written dates from 1955 through 1967 on them. The reeds had a beautiful, deep golden brown color, and amazingly, most were in good shape. After thouroughly sanitizing the reeds in both Peroxide and Listerine, I tried playing on them. The sound was fantastic. Sweet, not too bright or dark. Best of all, I now have what appears to be around 60 good, consistent, well seasoned vandoren reeds to play on. I only get about 1 good reed per box of vandorens these days!
Any comments on why these reeds sound so good? My theory is that the aging process treated them well. Others have said that Vandoren Quality Control is not now what it was then.
KevinS
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Author: Kathy Beatty
Date: 1999-11-09 18:58
I had stopped playing for over 20 years. When I started again, I found some old, unused Ricos in my old clarinet case. These reeds not only played beautifully, they have had real staying power - after 2 years, I still have 2 of them in my practice rotation. I wouldn't use them for a performance because I have better reeds, but I'll keep using them until they die!
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Author: Katfish
Date: 1999-11-09 21:13
Congratulations on your new clarinets. I lusted after them on Ebay but my wife, not being a clarinetist, thought I had enough clarinets.As far as the reeds go, I don't remember Van Dorens being any more consistent in the early 60's than now.Perhaps it's the aging factor. Many people claim that aging improves the playability of a reed. Would you consider selling me one of your Stowell Snyder Wells mouthpieces? They were copied from an old Woodwind mouthpiece of my clarinet teacher's son that Jerry Stowell liked. They have been unavailable since the early 60's.
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Author: Meri
Date: 1999-11-09 21:21
There may be two reasons that those old reeds sound so good.
The first has to do with the way clarinet reeds were manufactured in those days--reed cane was seasoned/dried properly, for 1-3 years. Then demand exceeded supply, so manufacturers had to do one of two things: dry the cane faster, using artifical means, or shorten the natural drying time. Reed manufacturers generally now cut the reeds when they are 'green', that is, have not been aged properly.
The second has to do with the fact that they were stored for a long-enough period of time (at least a year, although I have heard about excellent reeds that were never opened until recently, originally purchased in the 1970's). When reeds have been aged, they are far less likely to warp, unlike reeds that come straight out of the box.
Hope this answers your question.
Meri
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Author: Sara
Date: 1999-11-10 01:30
Hey so does that mena if I buy a bosx of reeeds tommorrow and let them sit for about two years then they'll be absolutly great?!
Sara
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Author: Tobin Coleman
Date: 1999-11-10 02:26
As did Kathy, I too came upon some four year old Rico 3s in my old Bundy case, which I pulled out when my regular horn, an Evette-Buffet Master Model, went in for a four-week oil and overhaul in Sept.
When the Evette got back, I tried the Ricos and they play great!
They never played like that before, they were just emergency spares when I had put them away four years ago.
I had the same experience with three half-boxes of Van Doren 2.5 tenor sax reeds that I found in a carton of old college books and stuff I had stored at my mother's house since graduating Boston U. in 1980. They play great now, all of them, and they had been borderline or rejects. Whether it's the slow drying or what, I don't know. But there's something to old reeds.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 1999-11-10 05:26
If KevinS has a micronmeter and measures the thickness of the very reed and a new Vandoren(same hardness) from the tip up to the heart at least 7 points in a line,quite provably he will find that the old Vandoren has a very thinner tip although the hearts are about the same.This is why they can sound quite smoothly in ppp to fff than the new one. By new ones sounds start to emit quite abruptly! This is what I learned from a Japanese pro who has continued to measure his reeds for long.
By the way, he will also find new or old, reeds thckness of the left side is thicker than than the right.Every reed.
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Author: paul
Date: 1999-11-10 16:53
The Vandoren reeds seem to me to be consistently thicker on the left than the right. For those folks who have this many Vandoren reeds (like me), grab a couple of full boxes of reeds and measure them with a micrometer on the left and right. I don't have the mircometer, but I've personally handled about that many reeds in my limited adult novice clarinet "career" over the course of a few years. Anyway, even my pro tutor nearly automatically reaches for his reed rush to lightly sand down the left side of the reed to bring it back into balance. He did that to every one of the reeds that he customized for me. The results were sometimes dramatic and sometimes not, but there were almost always improvements in overall reed performance.
I would assume that Vandoren makes reeds with this consistent imbalance for a reason. Perhaps a few of our resident experts can tell me why.
This is also why I am now slowly building up my stock of Legere artificial reeds. They are thoroughly consistent, from left to right, "tip to tail", etc. I can now spend my time learning how to play the clarinet instead of learning the art of reed customizing.
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 1999-11-10 17:29
paul wrote:
-------------------------------
The Vandoren reeds seem to me to be consistently thicker on the left than the right. For those folks who have this many Vandoren reeds (like me), grab a couple of full boxes of reeds and measure them with a micrometer on the left and right. I don't have the mircometer, but I've personally handled about that many reeds in my limited adult novice clarinet "career" over the course of a few years. Anyway, even my pro tutor nearly automatically reaches for his reed rush to lightly sand down the left side of the reed to bring it back into balance. He did that to every one of the reeds that he customized for me. The results were sometimes dramatic and sometimes not, but there were almost always improvements in overall reed performance.
I would assume that Vandoren makes reeds with this consistent imbalance for a reason. Perhaps a few of our resident experts can tell me why.
This is also why I am now slowly building up my stock of Legere artificial reeds. They are thoroughly consistent, from left to right, "tip to tail", etc. I can now spend my time learning how to play the clarinet instead of learning the art of reed customizing.
Paul -
The reason Vandoren reeds are (or were) a bit harder on the left is due to statements in the Reed Manual by the eminent teacher Daniel Bonade. It was his theory that the clarinet tended to roll off the thumb to the left and that when the player did nothing, there was nevertheless more pressure on the left side. Therefore the reed had to be stronger on the left than on the right. Avram Galper posted that portion of the Reed Manual on Sneezy several years ago. Go to http://www.sneezy.org/Databases/Logs/1998/02/000101.txt to read it.
I must say that I have never found that my instruments rolled to the left and have always gotten the best results with an evenly balanced reed. Still, it's worth experimenting to see what works for you and for your mouthpiece.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: paul
Date: 1999-11-10 19:08
Okay, I'll go to the referenced site and peruse through it. Obviously Bonade was (and still is) very highly respected (my tutor was one of his students) in the art of the clarinet, but that was about 50 years ago. I can't put a blanket statement down and say that the clarinet or the clarinet mouthpiece has dramatically changed over that time, but something has changed to make the typical left/right reed thickness difference more of a liability than an asset with today's players. I still need to ask this question. Why is Vandoren still making imbalanced reeds? What drives them to stick with a reed design based on one (highly respected) person's opinion from 50 years ago? Vandoren can make great natural cane reeds. They know the science and the art of how to do it. My point is, why doesn't Vandoren commit to the paradigm change and make balanced reeds for the majority of their customer base (retail, amateur, minimal skill with customizing reeds, etc.)?
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Author: Kevin Bowman
Date: 1999-11-10 19:09
Ken Shaw wrote:
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I must say that I have never found that my instruments rolled to the left and have always gotten the best results with an evenly balanced reed. Still, it's worth experimenting to see what works for you and for your mouthpiece.
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I, too, have read the Bonade statement but my reeds work better when I take some material off the left rail. However, I had always attributed this to my dental configuration. My teeth are shaped such that I normally put more pressure on the _right_ side of the mouthpiece. Every mouth is different. I think it was a bit presumptuous of Mr. Bonade to assume such a generalized solution would work for everybody.
Kevin Bowman
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Author: Kevin Bowman
Date: 1999-11-10 19:17
Is is possible that asymetrical rails were more common back then? Would this even be a factor? I have only really played on stock Vandoren mpc's (which have symetrical rails!) and don't have any experience with asymetric rails. Those of you who have asymetric mpcs - is it more difficult to adjust your reeds?
Kevin Bowman
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 1999-11-10 20:17
paul wrote:
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I still need to ask this question. Why is Vandoren still making imbalanced reeds? What drives them to stick with a reed design based on one (highly respected) person's opinion from 50 years ago
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Money. Changing the traditional design would cause some of the most conservative people I've ever met (clarinetists in general) to scream, holler, and ask "why did you change the design?". Launching a "new style" reed is a highly risky business - you're going to have to design new packaging, use reed material that you _know_ you could sell using your older design, get stores to stick this new reed (and good counter space at stores is hard to get & expensive), change your catalogs, etc. Risky business. If the anticipated profits don't exceed the expense by a wide margin it just isn't worth it.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 1999-11-11 01:49
In the article by Mr.Galper whose address was quoted by Ken, I found this paragraph:
"A few preliminary remarks:
Be sure that the side edges of the reed are not squeezed against the mouthpiece by the ligature. The pressure of the ligature should be in the center of the reed.
Second, the ligature should be about a quarter of an inch below the upper line drawn on most mouthpieces.
Third, do not tighten the upper screw of the ligature--tighten only the lower screw. It is not an exaggeration to say that reed troubles of 90% of clarinet players are greatly aggravated by not observing the abovepoints."
As to the third point, is this what every player does?
Keith Stein in his book the art of clarinet playing says a abviously adverse thing:tighten the upper screw only.
(I made it a rule to keep Stein's statement for long and recently I found my Greg Smith Kasper style mouthpiece works well with Galper's method.)
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Author: Kevin Bowman
Date: 1999-11-11 16:01
Most sax players, who are constantly playing with tone, know that in general, to brighten the tone, tighten the top screw more and to darken the tone, loosen the screw. The instructions that come with rovner ligs (which have a single screw) say that you can change the tone by "cocking" the ligature to the front or the back, in effect creating more binding force near the top or the back of the reed, respectively.
However, in practice on clarinet, I have found that tightening or loosening the top screw changes the response of the reed as well (this makes sense). With my bonade inverted lig, I go fo a happy medium by securing both screws just finger tight without over tightening. I do tighten the rear screw a little more, though. I have heard that at least one profession has super-glued his ligature screws and simply slides the lig over the reed - presumably he just pushes it down a bit to hold the reed.
My advice would be to experiment to get the best response and sound that you can.
Kevin Bowman
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