Author: huboboe
Date: 2011-04-05 23:58
I teach my students to define the rearmost part of the tip, the place where the half-moon 'blend' meets the edge of the reed, with a line in the bark straight across the reed (at 66mm on my scrape, for a 70mm reed and 4mm tip).
I then have them define the blend and refine the tip forward of this line. When the back is scraped, the line disappears, as you have described, but while it is there it defines an important place on the reed architecture.
In my studio you would get a round of applause.
As previous posts have pointed out, the slope of the blend is very important, but it is also very much a function of the resilience of the cane.
The 'blend' is the part of the reed that couples the vibrations from the freely vibrating tip to the thicker back, which can't vibrate without help.
As a general principal, the steeper the slope the more the tip is detached from the back and the more 'tippy' or buzzy the reed sounds.
The shallower the slope, the more the back 'steps on' the tip, eventually preventing the tip from vibrating freely or at all.
The trick is finding, for each piece of cane, the balance between tip and back that gives the sound you desire.
I made a reed once in 1972 that I liked very much ;-)
Robert Hubbard
WestwindDoubleReed.com
1-888-579-6020
bob@westwinddoublereed.com
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