Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2014-11-06 23:26
I use a container of my choice with the Boveda humidity packs. Whether you buy the Bovdea packs directly, from someone in the humidification business (e.g. a cigar retailer) or through Rico/D'Addario shouldn't matter as it regards the product's performance.
And I like the results. I think my reeds warp less, are ready to play faster, and last longer. But my observations are purely anecdotal and subject to my own biases. I could be wrong, or even if the cause and effect is there and I'm right, the benefits I get may not be transferrable to others or overstated.
A young aspiring player noticed my doing this once at a community band rehearsal. I basically gave the player the same talk from above, with the stipulation that she check with her teacher: an extremely recognized name in clarinet circles, on this subject matter.
So the student did, and reported back to me. She said her teacher said he was fine with this humidification, even though he didn't do it himself, but had an even better idea how she could improve her performance.
As told to me second hand, the teacher opened up Klose's 2nd manual to a particular page and said, "get this perfect by next week at 110 beats per minute."
.............
I suspect many who contribute here know there's no substitute for practice, and are at such a fine level in their craft that they seek marginal improvements in play through instrument and reed diligence---and who could blame them?
But for those reading this who don't know so, humidification isn't the holy grail of clarinet playing, as there is none.
Julian Bliss drives this home better than I possibly could here.
http://youtu.be/zUVNYVKA0z4?t=41s
Remember, this is not a dig at the previous advanced players postings who seem to know a LOT about this subject matter. It's just an attempt to put things in context that I suspect a lot of these posters would agree with (i.e. practice makes perfect), even if they haven't expressly said so themselves here.
Yes, get the best equipment, reeds, and learn the best in reed care. But then put your heart and soul into Klose, or Lazarus, or 30 different and wonderful practice methods, knowing that for decades, clarinetists survived without these humidification steps. Know that if a reed isn't doing everything you want it to, that it's quite possible that it may still be close to the best reeds will delivery for you, and the rest comes from the ability thatI suspect most players posting above already have. Two ways I measure clarinet growth is 1) when reeds you could have never played on in the past become ones you live with today, due to ability and reed care improvements, and 2) to know when it's the reed, not you, and the cane needs to be trashed.
(That doesn't mean we should turn our backs on reed care and equipment technologies. Here's Karl Leister, one of my favorites, telling us "how good we have it today," and how "back in his day 'clarinets would explode without warning'."
Snippets of that: http://youtu.be/uJrZfe3sTjM?t=4m17s)
Okay--that's an exaggeration into fiction! No exploding instruments. But he's pretty harsh about us not putting the blame of our reeds.
..............
Two final thoughts.
1) If I were to guess why this works I would say that benefits are achieved from reducing the difference between the storage and playing humidity of the read, HS ans HP as the original poster puts it. I feel (and I could be wrong) that a dry reed experiences physical trauma as its wetted because reeds often dont absorb this water evenly at first, causing them to warp and suffer damage when done repeatedly, as dry cane, takes on such water. (Maybe as it loses it too.)
I submit that HS doesn't change or affect HP, but rather reduces trauma to the reed incured when the reed goes from HS to HP, and that the closer these 2 readings are, the less the trauma.
2) If it's all about performance, let me share something I think IS detrimental to clarinet play: spending more time on humdification that the benefits it may yield, and at the expense of time on meaningful practice.
(That doesn't mean taking a break to chat on this wonderful site about such stuff with experts like many above, is anything but good.)
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