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Re: Reed Plastic Bags

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-11-28 19:32

WhitePlainsDave wrote:

> There's something to be said about rotating your reeds.
> Perhaps on this nearly all of us can agree; where we differ
> being only on the needed extent of this rotation and the size
> of the reed pool from which we rotate reeds.
>
> And I think we all do this under the belief that a reed will
> give us more useful play time when allowed rest.
>

I do rotate my reeds. but I rotate them not to get longer life from them but only to get the optimal response and sound from each when I use it. The size of my rotation varies - depending mostly on how many reeds from a single box I've been able to adjust to playability. I have no faith that a reed that plays well this week in this week's temperature and humidity will play as well a couple of months from now, so if they're playable now, I use them now. Longer reed life is to me a non-issue. They're just not that expensive.

> Does it drying out somewhat from
> play allow it to more closely return to the state it was in
> before we played it, barring of course the wear and tear that
> thousands of vibrations have placed on it during its last time
> on our mouthpiece?

That has been my empirical experience. It flies in the face of all the advice from other players about maintaining reeds' humidity. We all have our own personal witchcraft, but I've found consistently that my reeds play better when I've let them dry out as completely as the ambient atmospheric conditions allow (without deliberately added hydration).

> And if so, what is this magical amount of time we should allow
> it to rest such that its life is maximized?

I think a day off is enough, again empirically - a rotation allows even more probably unnecessary time. But a rotation also provides for some variety in my available supply. The rotation order isn't sacrosanct, and I often wet more than one especially before a performance so I can choose the one that seems to work best under the circumstances du jour.
>
> Should these questions have answers--and I suspect if they do,
> they may differ for each of us, we can apply math to derive the
> optimal number reeds to keep in rotation, such that increasing
> our pool size does not increase the life of the reeds within
> it, or does so only so marginally, as to not be worth it.
>
> Thoughts?
>

If reed life is the primary or sole goal of rotating, then you're probably right that there are optimal parameters. They might be different depending on the quality of the cane used for the player's favorite brand. But a bigger source of variability would be the player's demands in reed performance - how much degradation of the response and tone is the player willing to accept before declaring the reed dead or at least ready for retirement?

Karl

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