 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Sang1Lee
Date: 2008-08-28 14:59
i'm kind of interested in starting to make my reeds
anyone here do this?
what would be the easiest combination of equipments to get to make reeds from a good blank or a cane
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Author: William
Date: 2008-08-28 15:18
Here is a list of equipement from "MAKING AND ADJUSTING CLARINET REEDS" by Glenn H. Bowen, my old college clarinet teacher:
clarinet reed blanks, closed-coat silicon carbide sandpaper (220, 440 & 600 grits), 12" X 12" X 1/4 piece of heavy plate glass, metric ruler, pencil, reed knife, sharpening stone and oil, 6" half-round file, 1" X 4" X 1/4" plaques--plexiglas & glass (for finishing reeds on), reed clipper & dutch rush.
For the "how you do it" part, you have to get the book :>)
However, most any reed making book will do. If you google Glenn H Bowen, you will find a link to a listing his book and many others that are available. For some reason, I could not copy and paste the link myself.
Post Edited (2008-08-28 15:28)
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Author: Joseph LeBlanc
Date: 2008-08-28 15:38
Sang,
That's a loaded question. The easiest combo of tools are also the most expensive. For the cheapest method, see above.
Great reeds can be made with something like the Reedual but the time required to tweak the system and learn how to make it work for is not a challenge every player is up to. Many give up on the process thinking reed making is not for them when in fact their tools have failed them, or they haven't quite figured out which part of their process is off.
It took me about 100 reeds on the Reedual to get a sense of what worked well for me. I now use the Uhl RPM 68 (do a search for a review of it) and it requires almost no tweaking to get very consistent measurements.
The same goes for blank making, it took me a long time to get a system that yields perfectly flat blanks. I'm in the process of updating my blank making tools which will hopefully yield even more consistent results in much less time...I'll post a review when I get all the components.
Good luck,
Joe
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2008-08-28 15:40
I went to college many years ago with Shelley Hanson, who's now a professor (I think) at Macalester College. She's a bit older than me--I was an undergrad while she was working on her Ph.d. Anyway, her dissertation was titled "A systematic approach to the making and adjusting of single reeds." I got a copy of it, and made some reeds using her methods. If you want a copy, you can probably get one from University Microfilms. Making reeds is a slow tedious process, although I suppose that every serious clarinet player should do it at least once in his/her life.
I don't bother with it anymore--I'm not sure it's worth the time--but have fun!
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Author: rvazquez
Date: 2008-08-29 14:55
Hello Sang1Lee:
Reed-making is a skill which takes a lot of practice and patience to perfect. The one thing that I have to share with you is that only a small percentage of the clarinetists who claim we make our own reeds are actually “making” any. I do say that because a lot of us employ the use of devices that makes a copy of a reed rather than making them. Well, granted, a reed is still being made but our reed-making skills are not gaining any improvement as all we are doing is operating the device. Yes, a lot of us have heard of master reed-makers like Roger Salander-who can start carving a piece of cane and fifteen minutes later he is playing the reed. This is not something many of us can do. :-)
My recommendation? Oh yes, I almost forgot. I would like to suggest the following. Obtain the materials listed by William (the person who first replied), except for the reed blanks (at first). The way I started (1982) working with reeds was customizing a Vic Olivieri #5 (the heaviest reed I was able to find at the time) to fit my Hammerschmidt #0 mouthpiece. Because a Vic Olivieri #5 was still too soft to play this mouthpiece, I would clip the tip until the reed would no longer play and then start sanding away until it did. Once you feel comfortable with this method and/or decide if you want to continue with this journey, you should then order some reed-blanks from your favorite supplier. It would still be beneficial to acquire one of the many books published on this subject.
Hope this helps,
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Author: BflatNH
Date: 2008-08-29 16:51
Several things give me the sense that there may be something that I (we?) can gain by doing some of our own reed work.
1. The ATG product seems to have a noticeable affect
2. The oboe reed is shaped (from some drawings I've seen, but I've never tried to make an oboe reed) to have a non-uniform gradient which I'm correct, would favor/disfavor certain notes or overtones
3. Sabine Meyer's husband makes her reeds, and perhaps many other pros do it as well - there must be a reason.
Admittedly, there are many variables, but I suspect there are things that can be done for matters like sopr. good (focussed) altissimo and perhaps some bass cl. reed customization to help the upper clarion in single register vent clarinets.
Actually, I think that reed making is just the thing that one's partner should learn to do as a sign of true love (*sigh*) and devotion.
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Author: William
Date: 2008-08-30 15:43
It might be interesting to note that the author of the book I mentioned in my earlier posting actually taught his students to start with the "hardest reed you can find" (most often, Vandoran #5+) and "work them down" to play on your mouthpiece. He advocated using either a reed knife or dutch rush to do this and most of us were quite successful. However, he did advise that making some reeds from blanks (as he describes in his book) was a good way to initially learn to shape a reed and ultimately work more efficiently on manufactured reeds. For most of his students, making a few reeds from blanks and then working on hard commercial reeds was successful--except for me. I remain a knife challenged individual--can't even fashion a stick to roast weiners on--and must rely on my trusty Reed Wizard and the quality of the reed "out of the box" (which, with the recent V12 flow packs,has proven to be a turn for the worst).
IMHO, if Vandoran had made the classic movie, it's reformated & newly packaged HD BlueRay DVD would have to be re-titled, "The Cane Mutilation".
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