 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-06-26 13:54
How long does your reed last? I have been playing on some of mine for months and they seem fine.
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2001-06-26 14:08
Bob,
This varies quite a bit depending on your laying habits, brand/strength of reed you play.
My own experience is that if I play around 2hours a day with the same commercial reed every day, it will barely last 2 weeks. If I use a rotation of 10 reeds I get rid of 2-3 every other month.
The best way to tell is to constantly break in reeds and rotate them. You will soon find that the newer reeds after proper break in sound better than the older ones which you probably should remove from the playable ones...
Hope this helps,
-Sylvain
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Author: ron b
Date: 2001-06-26 17:28
Hi, Bob -
I guess I've never been too fussy about reeds. Some seem to just keep going and going and going... you know. Very few reeds, in my experience, will be less than as responsive as I'd like. I find that if a reed plays pretty good right out of the box it will play well until it dies of natural causes gets killed by carelessness. I haven't killed a reed in years. When they give up they just seem to get lazy and unresponsive until finally, there's almost no pulse at all. Then it's time for a fresh one. On one job, six (five hour) nights a week for about eight months, I remember reeds lasting a month or more - including occassional after hours jam sessions and stuff. Let's see... five hours time six times... well, a lot of hours  maybe a hundred hours or so (average) and I may have 'rotated' reeds once or twice. I say 'maybe' so and so many hours etc., because almost no one I know keeps accurate records. You can get a pretty good idea though from how many hours you play, how often, and how often you find a need to exchange or replace. Some people let their reeds 'rest' and rotate them systematically and that seems to work very well for them. Benny Goodman, it's said, went through hundreds of reeds looking for the perfect one. I was never that ambitious. I was never famous or in great demand either :x
- ron b -
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Author: Roger
Date: 2001-06-27 11:40
I try to keep 3 or 4 reeds broken in and rotate them each playing session. This is good to do because it means that you will always have a reed that you can use. You do not get caught in the trap of a gig with no good reed.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-06-28 00:53
1)Before using new reeds I make it a rule to age them at least 3 months. There are people who age reeds more than 7 years. Aging here means drying up to the enviroment humidity and let the reeds accustomed to working environments. This seems to make the reeds last longer and work better.
An Italian oboe/clarinet reed manufacturer owner says too much aging is no good. At most two years. He says.
2)Real Arundo-Donax canes in Var region seems to last very longer.
An example is Alexander.
3)There is a strange way to select and age reeds at the same time conducted by a famous German professor ( I read this in a magazine written by his ex-student.)
Take a new reed and immerse it in water for one hour or so. Then put it on a glass.
Wait one year! If warpage is observed throw it away, if not use it.
However these things are somewhat like black magic. (I like black magic.)
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Author: clarinet_girl
Date: 2001-06-28 03:04
I know a clarinet player who had a reed for 18 years and it still sounds good.
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Author: Bob Curtis
Date: 2001-06-30 16:29
Bob G --
There is no such thing as the perfect reed. If there were, we would have all gotten rich because we have found it!! Joking, of course.
I have found that, for me, proper care and drying out after playing is about as as practical thing you can do for the reed as I know. Take care of it and it will last a rather long time - more for some than others, individuals and reeds. Treat it harshly and it will treat you the same way and quit on you when you need it the most. I dry off my reeds each time I finish playing by rubbing the excess mousture off between my fingers, placing it carefully in the reed holder (made for that purpose) and putting it up carefully. I try to "break in" my reeds by playing on them a little each day until they sound like they should, and then using them as needed. If they don't sound correctly at first, I try "doctoring" a little them if they need it, or throwing them away. I don't waste my time trying to doctor each reed as I don't have the inclination nor time and I don't have to prove to the world that I am the world's greatest clarinet player and have the greatest tone any more. I let the younger ones do this now. By the way, I use Mitchell Loure reeds #3 - 3 1/2 ( standard and elite) along with Zonda - 2 1/2 as my standard reeds. How long do they last? Depends upon weather, how much I play, and many other factors. When they go, I get rid of them, but always try to have a couple of spares ready, just in case. On an average, I can get several weeks of playing out of a reed as I do not play several hours each day, only a couple of times a week. Hope this helps.
Bob Curtis
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