 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Chris
Date: 2000-05-12 04:12
Can anyone tell me how to make a crappy reed into a good reed? I've been having really bad reed troubles, and I don't have a new box to go through yet, and I have a performance next week... and I'm stuck. HELP!!!
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Author: Joey
Date: 2000-05-12 08:29
Depends on the problem you are having with reeds. If you can get a hold of a reed clipper and a reed knife, then there's an easy way to fix some "bad" reeds and turn them into "good" reeds.
If a reed is soft, use the clipper to cut off a piece from the tip of the reed while still maintaining that natural curve. If it stays soft, try clipping a little more, don't be afraid to cut a bit off. Becareful not to start clipping up to the heart tho, because it can damage the reed as a whole.
If a reed is hard, well there are a couple of things I've heard/used. One is sandpaper, the lowest number you can find the better, but I don't like it because it leaves everything thing you take off on the reed and the shavings can easily clog the pores making the reed hard to play on. I use a reed knife to take a little off of the reed. If it's hard on the low notes, try taking some off of the bottom half of the reed, if the high notes are hard to get out or are stuffy, try shaving off some from the left and right sides. If the reed is stuffy and hard overall, then go ahead and take a few strokes along the length of the reed, but always pull up before you get within a 1/4 inch of the tip in order to preserve the width. Using too much of the knife can lead to a soft read if you aren't careful.
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Author: Nick Conner
Date: 2000-05-14 15:58
If you have a performance next week, I'd say ask a few friends if you can have/pay for a new reed from them, and do a quick break in job. I had to play on the same five reeds for 3 months because my music store was 2 months late in delivering. I had to play my solo on a 2 month old reed that by that time sounded really bad. I hated it. I'd go with a reed not quite broken in, rather than a reed that is played out.
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Author: KevinS
Date: 2000-05-15 04:56
Chris,
You probably already know, but the main reason for a "Crappy sounding reed" is usually an uneven cut. You can scrape, sand or file a reed, and you might get lucky and get one to sound good. The key is getting the reed symmetrical and even across all areas of the surface. Tom Ridenour gives some great tips on doing this on the fly. If you're a perfectionist, and willing to spend a little money, there's a tool called Perfect-A-Reed. It measures the thickness of your reed at several points. You scrape or sand the reed at each point until all the points match. It takes a little patience, but I am now getting about 8 out of 10 reeds to play, as opposed to 2 out of 10. There was a Perfect-A-Reed for sale here in the classifieds for about 1/2 the list price.
Good Luck!
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Author: Dave Spiegelthal
Date: 2000-05-17 19:17
If you can find a copy, read the classic "The Art of Making and Adjusting Single Reeds" by Kalmen Opperman. I don't know if this is available anywhere, hopefully someone on the list will know (and I lost my own copy years ago, but I've been following most of the procedures in the book for most of my playing career, and I've found they work very well for me).
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