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The Clarinet BBoard The C4 standard

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Re: Carving Reeds

Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2014-04-11 20:57

It is inevitable when we buy reeds.....they are 1. acceptable or 2. too soft ie too easy to play or 3. too hard or resistant . For a novice I would suggest practicing with the 2nd scenario. Buy a couple of reeds that are very, very soft compared to your usual reeds. These will need to be clipped. You can do this with a commercial reed clipper, a pair of scissors, a sharp knife on a block, with razor blade or even with sand paper.....fine grit... 400-600. The reed clipper will give the easiest and good results.
You should be clipping the reed and then testing it on the clarinet. The highest register is a good start for a test. Test how the high c starts with the adjusted reed. It might take several clips until it has enough support for the high notes. If you are satisfied with the reed you should just lightly sand the tip to smooth things out. Put the reed on a very flat surface....plate glass works.... run the sandpaper lightly over the last 10mm of the reed and off the tip. You will find as you clip the tip, it is becoming thicker so we need to alternate clipping and sanding to the tip so the tip is thin enough to do it's job well. In fact when we clip a reed, the tip is probably fine. We are clipping to make the heart of the reed thicker.

Freelance woodwind performer

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