Author: cjwright
Date: 2006-11-22 03:24
"Perhaps approach your reeds with NO respect to the tone they produce at all. Go solely for function."
I will say that this is incredibly hard, particularly for us who have such a strong tonal concept that we manipulate our bodies, often negatively, in order to compensate for a terribly reed to get the sound we want.
I was reminded this morning in my practice session. I practiced for 45 minutes straight and was dead by the end of the session. I couldn't figure out why I was so tired in my first practice session, and I decided to switch reeds.
When I pulled out one of my "decent-good" reeds, I realized how blown out the other one was, and how much extra pressure I was applying with my lips (not biting though) to close down the reed, to add extra resistance. Unfortunately, this pushes the blood/oxygen out of your lips, and results in fatigue much faster.
So, the moral is don't mess around with blown out reeds. They're counterproductive to what you're trying to build, and will only get in your way.
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