Author: Craig Matovich
Date: 2007-06-12 12:57
I have always found the reed strength vocabulary of soft, meduim-soft, etc., to be ambiguous, especially from reed source to reed source.
If a given maker is pretty consistent, then at least once you know the reeds the terms develop finer meaning. It probably takes a few reeds to calibrate your playing to the reeds characteristics of a given reed maker anyway.
JudyP mentions 'air resistence' and personally I like that concept. Hard Vs. Soft I don't like because the cane may vary in hardness but a thinner scraped 'hard' cane may produce an easier blowing reed than a thicker scraped soft cane, or cane diamer causing differences in the tip opening may also contribute to the resistence of the reed. More open usually means more resistent, and too open encourages biting and terrible playing habits happen then.
Dutchy mentioned, harder (more cane) reeds tend to last longer and may even take a week of playing to break in. Think about what is happening as the reed breaks in, including fibers starting to break down, reed interrior and tip closing in the process, a little gunk depositing itself in the reed...
And then , finally, after a bunch of uncomfortable playing and much life spent the reed starts behaving itself.
I think you can ease the process by soaking the reed, inserting the plaque and squeezing the blade together (see Weber manual, or check Kerry Willinghams reed videos to observe the technique.)
Unless the reed has too much cane left, this works well and eases the playing of the new reed. I'd say, it also shortens the break in period and therfore extends the useful reed life w/o harming your chops by biting the too hard, too open reed.
Then once the reed is playing well, the air resistence becomes very evident and the feeling in the diaphram while playing is a good measure of reed strength or resistence. Too much back pressure becomes evident, but more importantly the feeling of proper back pressure is useful as an indicator of how the reed will respond. And responsiveness is higher on the hierarchy of important reed characteristics than tone.
(Not that tone is unimportant, but great tone with poor response or bad intonation is pretty useless.)
I now use the diaphram 'feeling' as a primary test for my reeds. Approaching the comfort point gradually from slighty too resistent helps refine and balance the reed without taking too much cane off by accident.
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