 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Wayne
Date: 2001-03-26 02:37
Greetings,
I've been playing for a short time and need to know if I'm shortening my reed's useful life in some way, or, am I getting average life from my reeds...... I use Vandoren #2 and generally find three or four in a box that I like. I play about two hours per day and try to rotate the reeds as much as I can ( I find it's easy to fall in love with one...). After about four weeks they begin to get difficult to play in any register but the lowest. Is this a function of my being a beginner ? Or, do reeds simply stop vibrating at the higher rates needed for the higher notes ? Do thicker reeds (higher # ) tend to last longer ? I play on an old Evette Buffet with a Vandoren M14 mouthpiece. Thanks everyone, This board is the BEST !!!!
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Author: Wayne
Date: 2001-03-26 02:49
Ooops.... Just wanted to add that I keep my reeds in a Vandoren reed case when not being played...........
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Author: Jim
Date: 2001-03-26 04:57
Check with your teacher, you may be ready to move to 2.5 reeds. Also, a soft reed can be made to "act harder" by clipping the end with a trimmer, or by "cheating" it up the mouthpiece a bit so it overhangs the tip a tiny bit.
Search this board for a number of recent posts about getting more playable reeds from a box, using 3 or 4 out of 10 gets pretty expensive.
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Author: donn
Date: 2001-03-26 14:42
I've had a lot better luck than that with Rico Royal's, rotated.
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-03-26 17:58
Wayne -
You're getting about average life from your reeds.
You can sometimes revive a reed that's not worn out. Here are a few tricks:
Put a small amount of toothpaste on an old toothbrush. Put the reed on a large plate and scrub, with plenty of water, down the vamp from the shoulder past the tip. This will remove dirt and grease and put some life back in the reed. Scrub the bottom, too, keeping away from the tip.
Another way to do this is to take a small saucer, put the reed in it and pour some fresh hydrogen peroxide in just to cover the reed. The peroxide will foam up and dissolve the grease and dirt that have worked their way into the reed. Peroxide is just water with oxygen dissolved in it. When the foaming stops, it's just water, so it can't hurt you or the reed. Get it at the drug store, and get small bottles, since it deteriorates over the course of a month or so once it's opened.
The bottom of the reed tends to warp, particularly where it presses into the "window" of the mouthpiece. Get a large flat file (mill bastard cut) and polish the bottom flat. Put your fingers only on the bark, and keep going until the entire bottom of the reed is evenly shiny. You can also use 600 grit wet or dry sandpaper (the kind with the black surface), but it's more abrasive than the file, so you have to be careful.
As a last resort, you can sometimes revive an old reed for a day or two by taking a sharp knife and removing a thick shaving from the last 1/8" or 3/16" on the bottom at the butt end, so that the bottom doesn't press against the mouthpiece any more. You could also cut off the bottom 1/8" or so with a coping saw or hacksaw.
You can make most of the rest of the reeds in the box playable, at least for practice, by flattening out the bottom and balancing the left and right sides by scraping with a knife or reed rush.
Good luck.
Ken Shaw
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Author: G.Lemieux
Date: 2001-03-27 18:32
Wayne-
Try wetting your reeds using water and not saliva. There are chemicals in saliva that break down starch and thus break down reeds. Rub the reeds both front and back (email for more directions). Keep rotating and you might get a little more time out of a reed but 3-4 weeks praciticing on a consistant basis is about a reeds life span. I agree that possibly you are ready to move up to a V 2 1/2.
Good Luck (arent reeds wonderful!)
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Author: Mark Charette, Webmaster
Date: 2001-03-27 21:17
G.Lemieux wrote:
>
> Wayne-
>
> Try wetting your reeds using water and not saliva. There are
> chemicals in saliva that break down starch and thus break down
> reeds.
Actually that's not the case. The reeds are made of cellulose, not starch, and the human body doesn't have the enzymes to dissolve the cellulose. There's a number of posts in the Klarinet Archives about it; check for cellulose and karius. One specific one is http://www.sneezy.org/Databases/Logs/2000/10/000745.txt
Whether or not the minerals in the saliva clog the pores of a reed and changes the sound is a bird of a different feather - but we don't digest the cellulose.
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Author: Nate Zeien
Date: 2001-03-28 02:52
Mark is right. It is not so much that the saliva breaks down the reed. The fibers in the reed break down from vibration. The reason that water helps preserve the life of reeds is that a new reed is like a sponge. It will be dry, and will soak up any moisture that comes it's way. When you stick it in your mouth, it regains its moisture by sucking up that slimy substance we call "spit". The reed therefore gets gunked up with our saliva right away. If we soak reeds in water first, the moisture is sucked in, but this time, no slime or gunk, only the water that the reeds are soaking in. It regains only moisture this way, and no gunk gets "sucked" into the reed. Yeah, through playing, this "gunk" will work its way into the reed, but the reed is more likely to stop functioning due to breaking down of the fibers though vibration. We cannot do anything to stop the vibration, as this is what makes the clarinet sound. In my opinion, it is still a good idea to soak the reeds in water. -- Nate Zeien
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Author: jerry
Date: 2001-03-28 10:10
After a practice sesion, I remove the reed and place it flat on a piece of glass and press it with my finger to squegee (sp) as much moisture out of it as I can. Of course I'm at home when I do this. When I get ready for it (I rotate two or three at a time), it is nice and flat. This seems to stretch their life a skosh.
Good luck.
~ jerry
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Author: Mandy
Date: 2001-03-29 17:07
When I used a Vandy reed case I found it shortened the useful life of my reeds and sent them mouldy, I could have teken out the cartridge but I bought a Klawus reed case instead,solve all your problems and try Legere reeds.
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