The Clarinet BBoard

The Clarinet BBoard The C4 standard

New Topic | Go to Top | Go to Topic | Search | Help/Rules | Smileys/Notes | Log In

Previous Message | Next Message

Re: permanently wet reeds

Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2012-07-18 09:32

I feel it's all about the player. Of course cane varies sooo much. I will write later this year about my experiences with 15 years at Rico, actually I'm the designer of the Grand Concert reeds as some of you fellow readers know. Rico made around 20 million reeds a year, so myself and the sax player had our work cut out making the best reeds we could. We both doubled so if one of us got sick, well no problem.The reeds were covered. After Joe, the sax player got sick and passed away the company hired 2 other sax players, but they weren't as good on the clarinet. However I did train some of the players to play the clarinet reeds. I hear they have a couple of fine players now.

Kind of a funny story. I love deep sea fishing. I called in one day saying I had a cold. Well I went fishing, but forgot about how fast a person can get a tan in California. Well that went over well when returning to work with a tan.

Because of the cane never being the same quality from year to year and picked from several places finding perfect cane for the top pros playing the Grand Concert reeds actually came from other places then the Var region of France. There are cane fields in Argentina. Vandoren gets cane from there as well. However some cane came from the Var area depending on the weather.

When making Mitchell Lurie reeds I'd pick out some every month for him to test. Not a lot, perhaps 25. Well he'd somehow pick his favorite reed out of the batch and play it for around 6 months. After playing it he'd give it to me for measurement and often I would play it. It was just fine. Felt like it was new. With Mitchell I wasn't concerned about germs. Anyone else except for Fred Ormand, the reeds never touched my mouth. Fred was one of my instructors way back in 1972.

So in Mitchells case I think it was how his body was built. Very little acid in his system, so the reeds wouldn't break down. Added, he had a very light bite. All air support.

For me I don't bite at all, but the reeds only last about 6 weeks. This is with heavy playing.

I messed with oils, vodka, sealers, and alot of other solutions. All of them failed my tests. I tried refrigeration. I pretty much tried everything I could think of as well as what theories other musicians came up with.

Although I must have thousands of Rico reeds all over the house, I don't play them ever. At the moment I'm into the Vandoren 56's. Recently I played a few boxes and they were so good I bought around 20 boxes. If you find some boxes of reeds that work, buy as many as you can from that lot.

So for now, as a reed expert, this is my best advice and theories.

Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces

Yamaha Artist 2015

Post Edited (2012-07-18 09:49)

Reply To Message | Avail. Forums | Flat View

Newer Topic | Older Topic

Topics

Author

Date

permanently wet reeds new

vjoet

2012-07-17 12:05