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Re: a reed a day?

Author: vboboe
Date: 2006-08-18 08:12

Yes to previous posts, and ...

<< play on new reeds daily>>
After cutting a new reed, it needs a bit of blowing in to settle down to being a reed rather than two pieces of cane, so making a new reed today usually also means some blowing in today. New store bought reeds need a bit of blowing in too, that's when it feels 'just right' to you?

<<playing on a given reed for only 3 hours (or 5 or 2 or whatever)>>
play a reed as long as it gives you good service, there's no 'limit' but there are useful rules-of-thumb for estimating annual reed budget, a medium student reed of average cane has prime playing lifetime of about 12 hrs
and there are other useful guidelines, such as rotate 3 reeds within each hour of playing time, rest an old reed (12 hrs) for 4-6 weeks before playing again, etc.

<<cannot afford to buy enough reeds to play on a new one every day>>
of course not and you don't have to! but, it is a good idea to have 3 fairly young ones with oboe at all times, and get more new reeds to replace older ones on a regular basis. On this kind of turnover schedule it's more like blow a new reed some days.

Those older reeds still play, so use them for home practice. Eventually all reeds reach a point of no return (not in playing hours but how the reed feels and sounds) that's when to recycle the tubes.

<<And what is the difference between the reed that can play for 3 hours, as opposed to the one that can play for 15 or 20 hours>>
This is cumulative playing hours, not how long you play one reed!
Usually it's cane quality that makes the difference, but there are other factors such as cutting, how it's played, how reed is looked after, etc. Softer coarse grain cane won't last very long as a reed; harder fine grain cane plays longer.

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