 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: gigaday
Date: 2010-05-11 07:48
I noticed a long time back that the mouthpiece that I use and the strength/type of reed has a big influence on throat notes - A and Bb in particular.
I use a VD M15 because I found it suited me and played a wider variety of reeds. I have six synthetic reeds from a couple of manufacturers and in different strengths; some of them I bought too hard and I have sanded them down to play OK. Five of the six play acceptably well, they produce different sounds but all quite pleasing in their way and this makes for a bit of variety.
But one of them has a bad sound in the throat notes. I have sanded it a bit but don't seem to be able to find the magic spot to fix it. The sound that I get on the A and Bb is nasal and sounds a bit like a duck call. Of course I could just throw it away and forget it, but I like to know how things work so I am prepared to carry on some more to try and learn which part of the reed affects throat notes.
Anyone got any ideas?
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-05-11 13:35
Yes, just throw it away. More likely then not if you make it play those two notes to your satisfaction you will adversely effect something else. But you could just practice on it and ignore the sound of those two notes. Check my reed chart on my website page to see some things you can do but I'm not going to guarantee anything. Usually if you fix one thing it effects something else, not always in a positive way. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: gigaday
Date: 2010-05-12 08:34
Thanks for your excellent advice, Ed. I ignored it, of course being me, and in the interests of science. I will however use the reed for practice, as you suggest, if I don't ruin it in the meantime. Synthetics are just so expensive that I hate to throw one away and , yes, I know it defeats the object of buying synthetics if I have to mess around with them to get them the way I want them.
Anyway, referring to your reed diagram, I removed a bit from the centre of the shoulder (4 in the diagram) and this made the situation much worse; so then I removed quite a lot from the sides of the shoulder instead and this seems to have improved things significantly.
The cut on this particular type if reed is quite strange, it's like it's been milled with a straight cutter and has no raised portion at all in the heart area where you would see it in a cane reed. I have another one (different model) from the same manufacturer that uses the same cut on the vamp but it heavily cut away on the area where the bark would be (6 in your diagram) and it has a really good sound straight out of the box.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-05-12 16:01
Well, I'm happy to hear that you ignored my advise, that's always the best thing to do. But you did take my advise and use the reed to practice on, so you only ignored part of my advise. Of course my reed diagram was intended for real cane reeds though I assume the same principals are involved somewhat for non cane reeds. For anyone that looks at my reed suggestions you will notice that I say that not everything will work for everyone and that you should find a few things that seem to work best for you and use them. The suggestions are meant to be used as ideas that one can do to fix your reeds but everyone needs to experiment to find what, if any, works best for them. I'm happy at least something worked for you. So much depends on the sound and response you're looking for, they type and style of reed you use as well as how the mouthpiece responds and of course, your embouchure. After much experimenting over the years I do 3-4 of the suggestions I mentioned on regular basis that usually work for me. Good luck with your reed work. ESP
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