Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-04-30 17:27
Johan H Nilsson wrote:
> I think clarinetists having strong reeds is very similar to
> golfers having too stiff shaft flex on their clubs. In both
> cases they think "harder is better". Not necessarily.
In fairness, the reason, IMO, a whole school of American players came up in the '40s through '70s insisting on using hard (#5) Vandorens on close-tipped and increasingly long-curved mouthpieces was that a harder (more dense?) piece of cane produces a different sound from the sound of softer material. But the difference had to do with "core" and "center" and intensity, not with "round" or "dark" or "covered" as it seems to now. So players adjusted those #5s to vibrate cleanly without being stuffy or unresponsive.
And, in further fairness, the #5s of today are much stiffer than the few #5s I still have from the '60s and '70s. When I put one of those old ones on my current mouthpiece, they produce a useable tone without work. They don't respond ideally, but that's what rush/knives/ATG, etc were for. And the reeds I still have were not the best ones - they were the ones I tried and set aside when they were new.
Your (or, rather, Brad Behn's) comment about noise at pianissimo made me think of this again. I think the noise you hear results from the fact that reeds have been designed in recent years to be stuffier in the quest for "dark." As a consequence, most of the hardest strengths are nearly unplayable without a lot of pressure.
I feel fairly certain the #3-1/2 V12s for which Greg Smith and Walter Grabner optimize their facings are not like the #3-1/2s of 40 years ago.
Karl
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The Clarinet BBoard
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