Author: cjwright
Date: 2011-08-02 09:00
Hi Linda,
As a professional reedmaker, I occasionally get a phone call or email from a reed client who is concerned about a crack on the throat of the reed (the area of the bark between the string and the beginning of the scrape.) Not once have I ever seen the crack go through the actual reed, and usually these cracks are surface cracks.
If you're truly feeling a "breeze on your upper lip" as you put it, it might be cracked all of the way through, but this is very rare. I'd guess that the problem is probably coming from a leaky reed rather than surface crack. If the reed truly is cracked, all of the way through, then yes, it should play VERY flat (not just a hair flat). but otherwise, a surface crack would usually make no difference.
If you have questions, send it back immediately. There's nothing worse than sending a reed out and then getting an email complaining about the reed a month later. As a reedmaker, I'm sitting there wondering, "Who knows what that reed has been through in the past month!"
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