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reed mold mystery

Author: Musikat
Date: 2018-10-17 06:45

Help me solve my son's issue with his reeds. For background, he has been playing on Aria strength 3 for over a year, using 4 at a time in one of the plastic cases (Rico or D'addario or something like that) that hold 4 reeds and had no problems. This includes over the summer when it was horribly humid and rainy here. A week and half ago his teacher suggested he try Vandoren 2.5 because she thought they might be between the Aria 3 and 3.5 in strength, as the 3.5 seemed too stuffy still. So I bought a box of blue box Vandorens. We went through them, chose four good ones and put them in his case as usual. After maybe two play sessions at school he told me his best reed had "black spots" on it. I looked and sure enough his best one, open for less than a week was moldy all the way through from back to front. So was his second best one. I tried soaking them in hydrogen peroxide and brushing with toothpaste, but it was a lost cause. It seemed to be all the way through the reed.

We picked two Aria 3.5s from a half box we had to replace them and I told him to play the other two Vandorens at school while we break those in. I looked at the Vandorens today (he brought just the reed case home yesterday) and once again one of them, I assume the one he played in band, was moldy! that is three out of four that have been ruined in a week. What gives?

Because the Aria 3.5 seemed to work for him after all I just ordered him a box, but at that price I don't want them to get ruined. Should I get him a different case? He is only in 6th grade and doesn't really need a humidified case that holds 8 reeds at a time. That one was working great until this week. The only thing I noticed is he has a tendency to shove the reed in tightly. Maybe it is too far and cutting off air to dry it out? He says he wipes extra moisture off the reed before putting it away.

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reed mold mystery new

Musikat

2018-10-17 06:45