Author: cjwright
Date: 2012-12-28 04:35
Basically, I like to have as many as possible!
But in all seriousness, I rarely have a reed in my case that I wouldn't play a concert on. Not that they're all fantastic, but you just end up learning to play on what you have and focus on making reeds that will function enough to get the job done rather than "the perfect reed". I guess it might be different if you only play one concert every two months vs. one concert every week or two.
I do usually keep many different kinds of reeds in my case, namely because since I play in so many different venues, I never know what the acoustics will be like and therefore need to have reeds of all different sizes and sounds. A beautiful round reed in this church might sound dead and puny in this gigantic hall, while the reed that works in the gigantic hall might sound shrill and harsh in another hall.
One last thing to think about; I know John Mack and Joe Robinson used to do this, and one of my former teachers Jan Eberle of Mich State preached this: Learn to make a reed in 10 minutes and play on it for a concert. JM and JR used to show up to the venue with 5 blanks, and scrape 5 reeds from them and just play on the best of the 5. The theory is that your reeds are constantly changing as is the temperature, weather, humidity, etc, and so the most consistent reed you can play on is the newest one you just made. Obviously I don't think works for everyone, and you have to be a pretty prolific and consistent reed maker to do this, but it's worth considering.
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