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Re: Synthetic reed for beginner?

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-09-18 00:01

I've never had a beginner play on synthetics, so I can't say whether or not I like the idea in practice. I only rarely start a beginner these days, but if I did I'd have three concerns that would probably keep me from trying it.

1) As nellsonic mentions, alignment is crucial, at least with Légère reeds. Add to that the difficulty of actually seeing where the a Légère is on the facing with respect to the tip and side rails, and I'm not sure how much trouble the synthetic would cause against what it might save.

2) Légères tend to play flatter than cane, so a beginner's tendency toward flat pitch might be aggravated.

3) Synthetics in general seem to need more attention to keeping the tone focused. I actually need more careful embouchure control to maintain life in the tone (as well as keeping the pitch up where it needs to be), especially around the throat area of the clarinet.

Maybe these issues can be compensated for in the beginner's equipment or by future improvements in synthetic reeds, but my gut feeling is that right now it's easier to develop good control of pitch and tone with responsive (and, when necessary, more easily discarded) cane reeds. When I show my high school students Légère reeds, they already know what to listen for.

Karl

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