 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: music_is_life
Date: 2005-03-01 20:08
I have a couple random questions that I figured I'd compile into one thread to save time and room.
1. sometimes when I play for prolonged periods of time...or really long, slow, lyrical pieces, my neck starts to hurt. Is that typical? or am I doing something wrong with my posture (though people say that I tend to sit with my back straight as a board)...?
2. This may sound odd, but is it possible to determine the quality of a reed by the way it tastes?
3. Sometimes my reeds get dark spots on them- like one part is wet and the rest is dry... and sometimes I can see through that part... what is it? does that indicate that my reed is bad? it seems that those reeds play fine, but I'm wondering what it could be...
-Lindsie
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Author: Bnatural
Date: 2005-03-01 20:59
1. I would guess that subconciously you're tensing up, not sure though
2. Yes, but I would bet their will be alot of disagreement on that point, cane isn't really a taste that I can describe but I normallly have a pretty good idea when I taste it.
3.Yea, I noticed that to... it only seems to happen when a reed is getting towards the end of its life, maybe our lip pressure pushes fibers out of the way
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-03-01 21:49
I had a teacher once who believed that the better reeds tasted "sweet" -- created by something about the growing conditions of the cane. He was suspicious of reeds that were a bit sour or tasted of straw. He also had a thing about color -- he didn't like reeds that were too pale, or too brown, and he didn't like reeds with brown spots.
I don't know that I've been able to verify this, but then, I probably haven't tried nearly as many reeds as he had. Actually, I've always LIKED the reeds with a little bit of brown streaking.
Susan
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Author: Iacuras
Date: 2005-03-02 02:36
My guess for #3 is that those dark spots are mold. I get these on my bass clarinet reed quite often. There are quite a few different ways to get this off. What I do is take some Hydrogen Peroxide (the diluted stuff you can buy at the store) and a toothbrush and scrub the reed in one direction. What will happen is the oxygen being released in the reaction H2O2>H2O+O2 will kill the mold, and the only thing left will be water. Hope this helps, and I hope the chemistry didn't confuse you.
Steve
"If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."
"If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly."
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Author: music_is_life
Date: 2005-03-02 16:18
Iacuras wrote:
> My guess for #3 is that those dark spots are mold.
I thought that too, but it doesn't look like mold...or mildew. I'll test your theory out just in case though
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