 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Pete L
Date: 2012-10-02 04:18
Hello, everyone!
This is my first post on the bboard 
I am a high school clarinetist and I adjust my reeds with a resurfacer and a trimmer.
I use the Vandoren reed resurfacer and stick, and it has worked great on reeds that were too hard. I would sometimes resurface a little too much and the reed would go thin. That's when I got the reed trimmer/clipper.
However, no matter how I adjust my reeds, I seem to get a sound that is too "harsh". It's not that the reed is too thick for me - the resistance is almost ideal - but the sound is way too piercing, and I can't play a proper legato or a beautiful, soft sound.
Does anyone know a solution to this problem?
Thank you in advance!
-Pete
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Author: Clarimeister
Date: 2012-10-02 04:25
It could be possible you are still using too hard of reeds and either biting to compensate (which could cause the harsh sound) or maybe your reed is still unbalanced? I used to think my reed resistance was ideal until I moved down 1/2 a strength and am loving the results. More controlled sound. I can still play loud and soft without an airy low register or shrill upper register. Experiment and see what you can do. Hope this helps.
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Author: JHowell
Date: 2012-10-02 13:11
Pete, do you have a teacher? If not, try to find a teacher whose sound you like. If you can't, listen to recordings to find your perfect 10 sound. Your body needs a better image than "I don't like THIS about my sound." If that's what you focus on, you will get even more of it. You must have a clear memory of what you want to sound like, and focus on that. You may indeed have setup or technique issues that can help your sound by being resolved, but in the end it is your mental "ear" that determines your sound. If you can't hear in your imagination what you want to sound like, how will you know if you're getting closer?
When I was in high school, I lived in a very small town. A family friend visited from a larger city where there were record stores, and, knowing that I played the clarinet, she brought me a record of a famous British clarinetist playing Weber 1, Concertino, and Rossini Intro/Theme/Variations. I thought it was great. I wore the record out, and when I got to college I sounded EXACTLY like the record, which was good in some ways, but not ideal for getting a job in an American orchestra. It's like accents in speech. You will become what you hear.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2012-10-02 15:08
To reinforce what Jack said at the begining of his response: find a teacher who can listen to your sound and make meaningful suggestions - nothing anyone guesses at here will be very useful except maybe by accident. We can't hear you. "Harsh" and "piercing" can have somewhat different meanings to different people, but more than that, what you hear as harsh or piercing may not be coming across that way to a listener who isn't connected to your mouthpiece by bone and soft tissue.
It is likely that, whatever you're doing to your reeds, it's too much. I don't know how the Vandoren reed resurfacer works - I had the impression that it's meant to flatten the back of the reed, not to scrape the vamp, but maybe that was my misunderstanding of its purpose.
To adjust reeds well (so they play well) you need first to start with the right strength reed. Some players say they like to start with a reed that's too stiff and scrape it down to their preferred resistance. That's more work, and the more scraping you have to do, the more opportunity you have to take too much out of one area and ruin the reed completely. Starting with the right strength allows you to simply balance the resistance so it's equal on both sides, which may only take a couple of strokes with whatever abrasive you prefer, and then play.
Next, you need to know where to remove cane. There are lots of instructions online and in print that give graphic as well as verbal suggestions. Your basic goal is to allow the reed to vibrate easily without closing.
But the last part of the process is knowing what you want the reed to do so you know when to stop meddling with it. This is where Jack's suggestions about building your concept of tone by modelling on good players can come in. But I would suggest that it's much better, if you can, to model on live players that you hear in the concert hall (or at a lesson). Recordings can be deceptive, and lots of really excellent players, especially of the past one or two generations, didn't record well for one reason or another. But even modern recordings often fail to capture the players' true sound, so if you model on those recordings, you're working for a sound that doesn't exist in real life. Try to get to concerts. (I don't know where you live or how accessible good performers are to you.)
Above all, there is no substitute for two pairs of ears - yours and another, hopefully belonging to someone knowledgeable about the clarinet like a professional teacher - in a room listening and evaluating what you're producing and looking together for the most *effective* ways to improve it.
Karl
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-10-02 15:29
Pete -
When you adjust reeds, it's very important to have the sides get thinner very gradually, almost completely to the tip. Any concavity will ruin the reed.
Play an open G and twist the clarinet as far as possible to the left and then to the right. You need to balance the left and right sides to be equal strength.
Hold a reed with the butt between your thumb and index finger with the vamp toward you and the tip pointing down. Hold the reed up to a lamp so the tip us just under the edge of the shade, or go to the window. Find high areas, which will be more yellow than the others, and mark them with the side of a soft pencil. Using the wand (I use a knife) gently scrape off the pencil mark. Be extra careful to avoid getting the corners too thin.
Test the tip by holding the reed butt between your thumb and index finger and press the tip *very lightly* against your thumbnail. You want the tip to bend back gradually and evenly with the same resistance all the way across.
Make sure there's no leakage at the corners of the reed. Experiment by moving the reed up a tiny amount to make sure.
The reed must not overlap the outside of the rails. If it does, your lip will bend the reed around so it binds against the outside of the rails. Kalmen Opperman showed me how to sand down the sides so the reed is very slightly narrower than the outside of the rails -- maybe 1/64". Then hold the reed on the mouthpiece with your right thumb and find the most resonant position, moving the tip left and right in microscopic amounts.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Donald Casadonte
Date: 2012-10-02 18:01
Ken,
You wrote:
"Hold the reed up to a lamp so the tip us just under the edge of the shade, or go to the window. Find high areas, which will be more yellow than the others, and mark them with the side of a soft pencil. Using the wand (I use a knife) gently scrape off the pencil mark. Be extra careful to avoid getting the corners too thin."
This method does not determine high or thick areas very well because lignification within the reed can cause an increased opacity to light transmission just a much as thicker ground tissue. I did extensive optical densitometry scans of reeds and the correlation between light passage and thickness is not linear. Lignin and cellulose do not have the same optical reflectivity, either, so doing a surface scan of the reflection off of the reed is not perfect, either. A cheap jewelers loupe or a portable 60x Radio Shack lighted microscope (about the size of a cigarette pack and just the right size for the reed) would be, in my opinion, a far better way to examine the reed.
You've gotten me thinking of a way cool and cheap way to see the surface of a reed in 3-d, live (cost about $10.00 and an hour to make). I'm going to try to make it. I'll let you know how it works.
Donald Casadonte
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2012-10-02 23:53
I have some interesting things about "tapering" and adjustings a reed before you clip it on my reed pages on my website, check it out.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: SchlockRod
Date: 2012-10-03 10:00
I agree that flattening the back of the reed uniformly to thin it (is that what the Vandoren, Ridenour, reedgeek, etc. tools do?) is not necessarily going to get the response & sound as we want them.
I use a knife and also look through the vamp at a light source. I've also realized that transparency (not proportional or equivalent to) thickness, so one has to be careful and play-test as you go (or use a clever 3-D viewing device?).
But is thickness (proportional or equivalent to) stiffness? I think not, as I learned that different strengths of reed are not made by varying the cut - they come from the density and other micro/macro characteristics of each individual piece of cane.
Comments?
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Author: SchlockRod
Date: 2012-10-03 16:38
And also regarding the original question, it's important to find the right make & model of reed for your mouthpiece, facing, and chops (and of course the sound you're after, ahving listened closely as prior responses say to do). If you get that sorted out first, then you have less fine tuning to do with a knife or what have you...
I'm still wondering how much good (a) looking at light through the reed, and (b) precisely measuring its thickness in different areas, does.
I find (a) useful to give me general direction when balancing/adjusting, but I don't think transparency or thickness are the only, or even the principal factors in strength/vibration...
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