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RE: reeds and climate change

Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2002-08-07 12:44

As a traveler and clarinet player I find that if I take my own environment along with me that there are no serious problems that I can not overcome with changes in altitude, temperature, and RH. If you condition the reeds by keeping them in a sealed container that keeps the RH at around 50% and ambient temperature between 60- 80 degrees F you always start off with a reed, no matter what the temp and RH (high or low), in the same state. Altitude sometimes does funny things but if you have a selection of reeds with different characteristics - a little softer-slighly harder than usual then a little practice in the hotel room will tell you what configuration to use. If you let the reeds aclimatize to the conditions at hand (e.g. super low RH) you start off with an unknown and when the reed gathers moisture during playing it might not be the reed you wanted for that day. We have not considered the phase of the moon in our discussions but I plan on coming out with a lunar guide to clarinet playing!
The Doctor

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