 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Zain
Date: 2016-04-13 02:38
Hello all, I was wondering what clarinet professors use soft reeds and teach their students with soft reeds. Preferably a set up close to an M30 with blue box 3's (though I use a borbeck 13). I am a junior in high school and continuing into clarinet performance in college and I was wondering which studios teach this way. I currently study with Dr. Loomer of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina and she has opened a whole new world of clarinet playing that I just didn't feel playing on an m13 lyre with v12 4's. I feel like this is my voice on clarinet and I want to find someone who shares a similar voice. Also, if anyone could inform me as to any professional clarinetist that use a similar set up so that I may study their recordings. All of the greats of our time such as Frost, Cohen, Hawley, Morales, McGill, and others like them seem to play on harder reeds from what I can hear in their recordings. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2016-04-13 03:07
My teacher mentioned a while back that Anthony McGill, at least for a time, might have been playing softer reeds.
Anyways, some teachers might want you to play on a particular setup, but I'd imagine (or at least I hope) that most good teachers would work with the student to find a setup that works for them. I'm off to college after this school year, so I'm hoping whoever I study with (currently narrowing down my options) will be open-minded about mouthpieces and reeds.
Post Edited (2016-04-13 03:11)
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-04-13 05:02
Hi Zain:
...as if you asked the question of Mark Nuccio himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g5ZLuL4gbs
He talks about pros he knows on all sorts of setups.
Jon Manasse plays a M30D.
The long short: there is absolutely nothing wrong with your mouthpiece and reed strength choices in and of themselves. Plenty of pros play similar setups, plenty of pros don't.
Within reason, it has to be right for you. No, don't play a Vandreon 7JB with their #5 reeds. That's too open a mouthpiece with too hard a reed.
But that said, don't kill yourself to play clarinet: it's hard enough. Play on the weakest reeds that don't compromise your artistry.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-04-13 06:41
Zain wrote:
> All of the greats of our time
> such as Frost, Cohen, Hawley, Morales, McGill, and others like
> them seem to play on harder reeds from what I can hear in their
> recordings. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank
> you.
I don't think you can tell this with any certainty from listening to recordings. Be very careful about using recordings to model a sound concept because you think you know who uses the equipment setup you like. You need eventually to build your own concept and then find the equipment that allows you to achieve it most easily. If you feel comfortable musically with what you're using now, there's no reason to change. But there's no guarantee that as a high school junior you have found your forever ideal.
Your approach to sound and to playing in general may change considerably over the next years.
Many players change their concepts, some subtly and some more radically over their lives as players. Two come to mind that you probably know from recordings. Ricardo Morales has changed his sound (somewhat subtly, though I find it more noticeable than that in Verizon Hall) since coming to Philadelphia (I think) 11 years ago. He has also changed his equipment considerably to facilitate the conceptual changes. David Shifrin sounds very different from the way he sounded the first time I heard him play in the mid-1970s. I have no idea what equipment contributed to his sound then or now, but I'm sure he has allowed it to change with his concept.
Karl
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Author: jcm499
Date: 2016-04-13 07:40
Well, I’m not a professor, nor do I know any who advocate softer reeds specifically, but I do have a suspicion that some clarinetists are hindering themselves by playing excessively hard reeds and resistant setups. Of course I’m not talking about the top-tier soloists you mentioned; any of them may or may not have sound reasons for choosing the equipment they do, but I suspect each of them would sound heavenly playing on a popsicle stick duct-taped to a garden hose.
It’s my completely uninformed belief that the playing concept has changed over the past few decades. Players of the past, with instruments that were more approximate in the intonation department, must have preferred lighter, more flexible setups to aid them in centering the pitch. Players of today seem to prefer an inflexible setup on a clarinet that plays in equal temperament without any pitch adjustments by the player, made (more) possible by modern acoustics and manufacturing. I wonder if some of that shift in approach is attributable to the easy availability of recordings from all over the world leading some American clarinetist to try and sound more German on French instruments. That’s just guesswork, though.
There are some real advantages to playing on a softer reed, especially on a more open mouthpiece. The extra pitch flexibility can help with expressive intonation, and the timbre seems more even across the registers. Also, the intraoral pressure seems to be less, which may be hugely helpful to some. Rapid articulation may suffer, but I’m not sure. Generally, I think a soft reed/open tip setup aids in a more vocal, emotive performance, though it’s ultimately up to the player, of course!
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Author: Zacharywest158
Date: 2016-04-13 08:43
As a student of Frank Cohen, I can tell you that he plays on pretty light reeds. He encourages his students all to air on the lighter side as well.
Unfortunately, I can't give you a reference for him in regard to commercial mouthpiece/ reed setup. He makes his own mouthpieces and uses mostly Gonzales reeds. With that being said, when he played in the Cleveland Orchestra he used a heavier setup in order to kick out some serious sound. Now that he does mostly solo and chamber concerts, I think his setup is getting lighter.
As for myself, I play on a mouthpiece made by him as well, (sorry, not helpful), and V12 4's. All I can tell you is that my mouthpiece is VERY free blowing. Any thicker than a 4, though, and I have to bite.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2016-04-13 08:51
I think Eddie Daniels' idea on mouthpiece/reed setup is best. In a video on YouTube, he talked about how he used to use harder reeds and used to put his bottom lip on it and squeeze it a bit. This made the effective tip opening a little smaller as he was squeezing the reed up a bit.
He then said something like, "if that's the tip opening I want, why don't I just start with that tip opening instead of biting it to that size?" of course this means by definition that he doesn't bite or squeeze a harder Reed more shut, but has a Reed that allows him to use light pressure and use the full tip opening he chose.
My personal thoughts? I'm an "err on the soft side" kind of guy. So I use fairly close tip mouthpieces (grabner k11* and Greg smith chedeville 1) with a 3.5 v12. This is probably on the soft side of the recommendations by the makers, but it means I don't have to squeeze, and I can play a lot longer without fatigue. But if I DO inadvertantly squeeze a little bit (like when I'm tensing because I see those awkward interval jumps coming up with way more sharps than should ever be written), it doesn't close off the Reed and result in a pinched sound.
So for me, my Reed choice allows for an extremely light embouchure, but also a hint of firmness so I can feel very stable and still not shrill in the upper altissimo.
I'm certainly. Not of the caliber you are looking for, but I can play anywhere from one to four hours a day and not be tired. I always fatigue mentally before physically.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-04-13 15:09
So far there are a majority of you who want to justify:
Hard reeds = professionals
so I guess you win.
And there ARE really great players who have gravitated to hard set-ups and make them work.
But it's not a good idea. Because you can get a great, professional sound with an 'EASY' set up, that is big, round, projecting and won't kill you to go 6 hrs in a day (if you want to or need to).
Think of the lonely oboe (not the one in the average high school band, but an orchestral oboe). There is no time that you can't hear an oboe over the biggest orchestra, and you are talking about a really tiny double reed opening that requires so little air, their problem is accommodating regular breaths without much air going out.
So, the idea of projection is based more on overtones than anything else.
I just found out after 40 year of playing that a standard German player plays a mouthpiece with a 0.83mm tip opening, a 24mm facing length and a 2 1/2 strength reed (some play heavy set-up yes). And they sound great! Mr. Bas deJong of Viotto mouthpieces began his correspondence with me saying: "Why do so many American players work so hard with their embouchures when all you have to do with my mouthpiece is just blow?"
The part were students get confused is that when you first learn, you tend to chomp (that is if you care, but don't know exactly how to go about it). When you then try a slightly harder reed, things seem to sound better.
Ergo.............harder = better
Try this (this will work particularly well if you already have a decent sound):
Pick your best note; just play a nice easy long note for this. Now start to easy up on the reed. You'll hear the sound get more diffused, less focused. Now go back to your easy note, and start to squeeze. You'll notice the sound gets more restricted and buzzier. This shows you that there is a "middle" where the sound is best, not too squeezed off, not too uncontrolled.
There will always be a little push against the reed (we set our embouchure just before the fulcrum point where the reed and mouthpiece come together). But the less amount of pushing you do at that point equates to allowing the reed to do most of the work.
And the hardest lesson to learn is: Finding what works...........at five feet or more AWAY from you. That takes some feedback from others at first and then the ability to remember what you do and sound like to yourself when that is working (and oddly enough I DON'T advocate getting caught up in recording yourself).
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-04-13 16:17
For the record, I don't think any of the posts, at least on this thread, have advocated for hard reeds or equated "Hard reeds = professional." That equation tends to be one of the most common misconceptions of inexperienced students more than anything else.
Karl
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Author: Ed
Date: 2016-04-13 17:18
Good point Karl. Many less experienced players think that as they improve they should keep moving up in strength. Not too long ago I had a student come in really struggling with problems with sound, control and endurance. I found that he had gone out and bought new reeds that were quite a bit harder, thinking it would be a good thing.
It is a misconception to think that harder reeds take more work. It all depends on the dimensions and playing characteristics of a mouthpiece and what reeds fit. Some set ups can work really well with harder reeds, yet are incredibly free blowing, responsive and do not need much work from the embouchure. It all depends on what matches your set up, your style and artistic vision.
I would not get too hung up with which teachers might like softer set ups. I would think that to most good teachers it is all about how you sound and what results you are getting.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-04-13 17:31
Steve Girko, a Drucker student, let me try his setup, which he said was very close to Drucker's. The reed was so hard I could barely get a sound out of it. Gigliotti also used extremely hard reeds. They had to, to be heard over a major symphony.
On the other hand, Leister used very soft reeds in Berlin.
You use what works for you in your particular situation.
For what it's worth, I think I sound best on a slightly open mouthpiece with medium-soft reeds.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-04-13 17:34
In the UK we don't tend to play on floorboards - maybe a 3 or 3.5 at the most depending on mouthpiece facing.
But it does worry me that some US based teachers who post on here start absolute beginners on Vandoren blue box 3s whereas beginners in the UK tend to start on a 1.5 or 2 and work their way up reed strengths as is necessary. Although there is always the competition element among peer groups as to who can play on the hardest reed and the higher reed strength means the better player which it doesn't.
There was a list of what UK clarinettists play on with regards to mouthpiece facing and reed strength which is worth looking at to get an idea that you don't need to play on a mega hard reed no matter who you are and that (high) reed strength isn't an indication of your playing standard.
It's all about how you play and if you're in control of what you're playing on, so don't struggle if you don't need to and don't be pushed into playing on a set-up that's not suitable for you.
It's not a 'one size fits all' thing - we're all different and all have different requirements.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-04-13 18:33
Ken Shaw wrote:
> Gigliotti also used extremely
> hard reeds. They had to, to be heard over a major symphony.
>
I have to comment that Gigliotti played reeds that varied over a considerable range of resistance. I had a chance to play on his setup a few times. I can remember clearly one time when I started to blow into it and nothing came out because it was, indeed, much stiffer than I had expected. But another Saturday morning during a lesson he gave me his instrument to try something and I immediately closed the reed, which felt like a piece of paper. He insisted that it was the same reed he had used the night before in a performance, which I had attended, of the Beethoven 6th. Maybe different reeds for different pieces (as many other clarinetists do) or maybe one was very new and the other very old.
Often he would find the reed I had brought into a lesson to be unbalanced or soft or hard, but he always managed to play it convincingly before either discarding and replacing it or adjusting it for me. The underlying principle was that he was flexible enough to play on nearly anything and sound the same or nearly so.
I agree with Ed that reeds designated with higher strengths are not necessarily harder - don't necessarily require more effort - to play than reeds with a lower number. The ease of the reed's response depends a great deal on the mouthpiece and on the adjustments a player makes to the out-of-the-box product. The reeds I play are at the harder end of the strength spectrum (that's a statement of fact, not an endorsement), but you'll have to take my word for it that, once I've adjusted them, they play more easily and freely with less effort than most of the #3s or #3-1/2s that I take out of the box and try to play. IMO, almost all modern commercial reeds I've played are stuffy out of the box because of their design, not because of the inherent stiffness of the cane they're made from. They have too much wood in places that _for me_ should have less.
So a lot of this discussion may be about the wrong property - it might be better to focus on vibrancy and ease of response and less about the number that the manufacturers put on the reeds they spit out of their machines. They aren't necessarily equivalent.
Karl
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Author: lagatitalila
Date: 2016-04-14 01:45
Your voice will always be your own, and you don't need to find a teacher with a similar voice, just one who will respect your right to developing your own while teaching you appropriate technique and helping you improve as a musician. But do yourself a favor and walk away from the idea that "hard reed=pro; soft reed=not pro" because it is not true.
Mouthpiece dimensions dictate reed strength. Open mouthpieces need lighter reeds, closed mouthpieces need firmer reeds. The physical shape of your oral cavity will determine what specific mouthpiece/reed combination FEELS MORE COMFORTABLE for you. Any player worth their salt can make an appropriate mouthpiece/reed combo SOUND good. And some players work with a few different setups, depending on what they are trying to achieve.
If you'd like to understand more about the relationship between mouthpiece/reed, Ridernour has some youtube vids you can watch. Look for "Facing the Facts." His channel is very entertaining.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-04-14 05:34
The sign of a great teacher is that all their pupils sound good, but no two sound alike. No teacher worth going to will insist that you play a particular setup.
You go for the best teacher, not one who plays an easy-going setup.
Ken Shaw
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Author: qualitycontrol
Date: 2016-04-14 06:28
Reed cane seems to be getting denser, too, or at least that is what my teacher thinks. He's been playing in orchestras in my area for 35 years, and at the start of his career played #5s, now he has just switched to #3s.
In the 70s and 80s, people playing #5s seemed to be fairly common, but I rarely ever hear of anyone playing more than a #4 now. If this is in fact true, and a modern 3.5 is harder than one from 40 years ago, this exacerbates the problem of inexperienced students wanting a more 'advanced' reed that has a higher number.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-04-14 08:01
Greg Raden, principal clarinet with the Dallas Symphony, recently went on record (on the Vandoren Blog) to say he usually plays Vandoren V12 3 1/2 reeds on his Vandoren M13 Lyre mouthpiece.
I can't get the video to come up directly but it can be viewed by
going to http://vandorenblog.com/ and clicking "for players."
The title of the presentation is "Reed Care and Tips on Equipment Selection with Greg Raden of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra."
So he could very well be one of the players using 3 1/2 reeds that Mark Nuccio was referring to in the video WhitePlains Dave attached to his earlier entry. I would think that reeds of this medium strength are very commonly used among professionals, for their vibrancy and ease of voicing, rather than anything like 5s.
Post Edited (2016-04-14 08:58)
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2016-04-14 17:47
In my first incarnation through high school plus a couple years, I played Vandoren 5's that came in a purple box. I stocked up.
In 1973 I stopped playing and resumed in 2007. I'm still using up my stock of now 44 year old reeds (on an M13 Lyre). Since resuming, I have tried out various sizes of current Vandoren reeds: 5's are very hard for me; it appears current 3.5's are about the same stiffness as my older 5's.
Someone suggested to me that the old 5's lost stiffness just by aging in their boxes. I doubt that. It seems more likely the stiffness scale has changed.
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Author: Ed
Date: 2016-04-14 18:27
A number of years ago I had purchased a large lot of Vandoren "Purple box" reeds from the early 80's from a music store that was closing. They were all #5 strength and worked great. They were very responsive, very vibrant and lasted quite a while.
In contrast, at the time I tried the current #5 Traditional cut (blue box). I found them to be significantly stiffer. I could barely get any playable reeds out of the box and could not get most of them to work no matter how much work I did. They were so stiff and dense that even taking wood off did not improve the vibrancy or response. Only a couple in the box were usable at that strength. I found that the modern #4, or even a little lighter were comparable to the old #5.
Post Edited (2016-04-15 14:15)
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Author: efsf081
Date: 2016-04-15 08:01
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhPLI4jhUsE
Just watch this video. Gregory Raden said he use blue box 3.5 with M13 lyre.
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Author: TomS
Date: 2016-04-15 15:44
During my first few years of playing, I thought the stiff setup/alligator bite was the goal of the best players. No pain, no gain. Right? Of course, I was largely untrained and much of what I heard was pure baloney.
Now using lighter setup, little "bite", better air supply and good voicing. I can play all day now, at the age of 63 ... something I could not do when I was 16.
One opinion about using Legere reeds ... and I have found this out recently (see David Thomas blogs on Legere reeds) ... you should use less "bite"or "jaw pressure" with the synthetic. The Legere, especially the Signature, don't like being warped with lip pressure, very much at all. Use less bite and more air ... see if that don't "butter your bread".
IMHO, the Legere reeds like a fairly close, flat facing (lower resistance) for best performance. I have found that the classic play well on most MPs, but the Signatures are best on fewer MP choices.
My three cents ...
Tom
Post Edited (2016-04-15 15:45)
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2016-04-15 16:25
All pros that play the Vandoren B45 mouthpiece must use soft reeds. What is a soft or hard reeds depends entirely on the mouthpiece.
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Author: TomS
Date: 2016-04-16 17:24
B45 is like driving a Mac Truck, IMHO. Played one for a while, owned several, gave them away. Would not recommend them, normally. Some great musicians play them with success, though ... Some knot-headed band directors (who are usually trombone players or drummers) have their kids play the B45, kinda like all trumpet players need to use a Bach 7C ... (at least to start on). Local music store has a large cache of new B45s ... much to my horror.
5RV-lyre hit the streets in the early 1980s and still has SOME popularity. I have several, including 2 refaced by David McClune.
As I get older/wiser/different, I prefer a warmer/subdued MP with more "hold" and a more compact sound, especially in upper clarion range. I remember playing a Smith/Zinner many years ago (don't remember model/facing) and it seemed to have this quality, but at the time wasn't my cup of tea ... may have to re-investigate.
Tom
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Author: dallask622
Date: 2016-04-20 07:34
Hello Seabreeze,
Just to clarify, I use V12 3.5+ and blue box 3.5 on a M13Lyre.
Best Regards,
Greg Raden
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-04-20 19:11
Thanks, Greg and David. Bob Bernardo reports that "the Steuer company is always back ordered, mainly with the Exclusive 3 1/2 reed," more evidence that you are far from being statistical outliers in preferring medium strength reeds, even for fairly close faced mouthpieces. Zain's original question about where to find professors and professionals who use "softer" reeds can be answered, "Just about anywhere and everywhere." Less than strong reeds are the "best sellers" among that group. The #5 plank is not the standard preferred reed today.
Post Edited (2016-04-20 19:15)
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