Author: mrn
Date: 2010-02-25 17:00
Quote:
Instead of using the Rico revitalize packs and spending money on them every few weeks, what are some techniques you do to keep your reeds humidified?
There are different schools of thought on this, and I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer.
I guess I come from the "just let them dry out" school. I simply store my reeds in the little plastic Vandoren sleeves the reeds come in when you buy them. However, I grew up and received all my formal instruction in clarinet playing in Houston (near the coast), where the relative humidity is always 60-90% anyway. Where I live now (near Dallas), the humidity is generally 60-80%, still enough to qualify as a humid subtropical climate.
The biggest differences in reed behavior show up in the winter, when everyone fires up their natural gas furnaces, and it's a bigger deal in Dallas than in Houston (because we're not on the coast and the climate is colder here, too).
In winter, when the indoor air is dry from forced-air heating, the reeds feel like they go down in strength. My usual remedy for this is simply to play on slightly harder reeds.
The other reason I'm aware of that people humidify their reeds is to prevent warpage. Warpage occurs when part of the reed dries more thoroughly than another, because wood shrinks when it loses moisture. My poor-man's approach to reed storage seems to take care of this issue, as well, since the little Vandoren sleeves do allow for some degree of airflow on the top and bottom sides of the reed.
There may be other reasons why people humidify their reeds, but these are the only two I'm aware of, namely to prevent fluctuations in strength/behavior due to ambient humidity and to prevent warpage.
Now one thing about James' approach that I think may have some additional side benefits is that the humectant he uses, propylene glycol, aside from regulating the humidity, has bactericidal properties. Since it is believed (at least based on one paper I read) that it is the accumulation of bacteria on the reed that is primarily responsible for the limited lifetime of reeds, it's conceivable that storing your reeds in a propylene glycol-humidified environment could slow down the growth of the bacteria and thus extend the life expectancy of your reeds.
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