Author: sömeone
Date: 2004-05-01 15:42
Well......
I get my supplies from a professional player in the national symphony orchestra Malaysia. In the states i guess it wouldnt be too painful to find one right?
Depending on how you stress and use them, a reed will sound
good (assume that its 100% good as not perfect) for more than 2 weeks.
they start to wear out with the saliva accumulation and cane deterioration. I've played on the almost the same reed for more than 3 weeks now, and i am still not complaining.
BUT as i've experienced it myself, players say that a bad reed may not be as bad when you try them again sometime later from the abandoned period.....so never throw away a reed which you think sounds bad (without a well defined reason to give an excuse) and you might wanna try it the nest day.
Most of the time its the player himself that is the problem instead of the reed. ALL the teachers i've attended classes with tell me the same thing over and over again:" You can find a 'perfect' reed today, but how about tomorrow? We make 10-20 reeds for every week, and when we don't (which is what happens all and most of the time), we buy from professional makers, but at the end of a bad performance, we will only strive for even better playing from ourselves, not our reeds....".
Every reed is different, rotating might be a good idea, but most stronger reeds need adapting, thus the saying.
Leon Goosens once said that he requested a reed which amused him from a friend (attention here that the friend has actually already played the reed for some time...), and after 1 or 2 performances, the reed was actually kept for more than 10 years!
Point is, we are often so drastic about our reeds, we neglect our playing.
The worst working reed is superb under a professional. So practise hard and work with an aim. Through time your judgement on reeds will change!!!
Good luck!
p.s: 10% out of 100% store bought reeds are 'made for display'. AVOID buying them. check out a good reed by looking at the scraping of windows under a light. Makers will fool you by balancing the 'look' of the reed, so be careful when you select your reeds! I strongly recommend reeds from a good player!
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