Grace Notes Music Studio

Do you spend too much time adjusting your reeds, getting them to play just right? Do you go through a box of reeds quickly because only a few will play well for you? Do you find your reeds grow mold (through no fault of your own) and cease to be functional? Have you ever played in very dry weather conditions and your reed becomes a squeaker?
As any reed player can attest, these experiences are the norm when using cane reeds.

But there is another way! Synthetic reeds.

During a stint of playing clarinet, alto sax and tenor sax in a pit orchestra, a sister clarinetist suggested I try Legere Reeds. If you have ever played in a pit orchestra, you know that often you have very little time to transition between instruments. Certainly not enough time to re-moisten a reed! But synthetic reeds offer a successful alternative. Since they are ready to play without moistening, you can switch instruments quickly and confidently.

And they sound good! When synthetic reeds were first developed, there were valid complaints that the sound was not as warm and expressive as cane. Today, those arguments are no longer credible. The Legere website has sound clips of people playing both cane and Legere reeds. Listen and compare the sound produced by the two reeds. Can you tell the difference? I couldn’t.

Based on the great, warm sound and the fact that every reed plays, I switched to synthetics about three years ago.

And there are even more benefits to using synthetic over cane.

The expense of keeping oneself in cane reeds is considerable. In a typical box of 10-15 reeds, you never know how many will be “good” reeds. And by good, I mean playable without needing to put a lot of work into it. That’s one reason why you buy them by the box. When you pick one out and start to break it in and it’s not working, you can reach in the box and start a new one. Of course, storing the first reed carefully. It just may play well later. Sure, uhn-huh.

All this reed care takes a lot of time. Not only are you buying boxes of reeds (multiple boxes if you are doubling!), but you inevitably spend time working them up. Sanding, smoothing, shaving, using dutch rush, clipping. These are just some of the techniques we use for making a cane reed playable.

I require my students to keep at least two cane reeds in their reed guard, ready to play, so there is always a backup reed in a pinch. Students who play synthetic reeds do not have that requirement.

And speaking of students, because new clarinet and saxophone players don’t have any experience on how a reed should play, they could easily end up playing on a bad reed and not know it. They find it hard to play but aren’t aware that it might be the reed’s fault! When you start new players out on synthetic reeds, reed problems are removed from the equation. As a teacher, you can focus on embouchure and other basics, knowing the reed is a good reed.

Synthetic reeds do not absorb and trap moisture and bacteria that can grow in a moist environment. This makes them a hygienic reed. You can play while you have a cold, clean your reed after playing on it, and not re-infect yourself when you’re back to good health.

There are a lot of good manufacturers of synthetic reeds today. I have tested Legere, Fibracell, Bari, and Harry Hartman’s Fiberreeds. Legere has an exchange policy that allows you to exchange reeds until you find the correct strength for your setup. Once I found the correct strength, I have played on a reed for many months. This works out to be quite economical. Synthetic reed prices range from $15 to $25 for a single reed, and can be found on sale for as little as $9.95. Even paying $25 for one synthetic reed is a better deal than paying $25 for a box of 10 cane reeds. That one synthetic reed plays fabulously! How many of those cane reeds will play fabulously and how long will they last?

Summary: Why choose synthetic reeds?

• give you great sound
• every reed plays
• you spend more time playing and no time sanding
• they’re economical
• they’re hygienic.

Bookmark:

When you and your horn are in good shape, you increase your odds for enjoyable and effective playing sessions. These 5 tips give you ways to take care of yourself and your instrument and continue to grow as a musician.

1. Clean your instrument after each use.
When you play a wind instrument, you are blowing moist air into a wood, metal, or plastic cylinder. After even a short time of playing, moisture collects inside the mouthpiece and body of the horn. The inside of the mouthpiece in particular can get very unpleasant if not wiped out with a clean cotton or silk cloth after each use. Always take your horn apart and swab it out after playing. Apply cork grease if the corks are getting dry or sticky. Wipe down the keys if they’ve gotten sticky or grimy. Better yet, wash your hands before you play!

2. Dry reeds flat.
Have you ever seen what grows inside a mouthpiece when the reed is not taken off after days and weeks of playing? It’s not pretty. It’s not sanitary either. For your own health, always remove your reed from the mouthpiece and carefully dry it on a cotton cloth. And wipe out the inside of your mouthpiece while you’re at it. (See #1 above.)

For the health of the reed, store it on a flat, smooth surface. Cane reeds need to dry flat so they will be playable next time you use them. When you leave a reed on a mouthpiece or store it loose in a box or other container, it will dry with a warp, making it difficult to play, let alone get a good sound. Look for a reed guard with a desiccant for storing reeds.

3. Improvise a little every day.
If you don’t play jazz, you may not have any experience improvising. This tip is not just for jazz players. It’s for all musicians. Taking time to put together a sequence of notes of your own choosing is a gift to yourself. What’s inside the gift is different for each person. Some possible gifts are: feeling more relaxed during regular performance situations; gaining intimate knowledge of your horn; feeling more accomplished and confident of your playing abilities. What gifts have you received by improvising?

One definition of improvise is to produce or make something from whatever is available. Let’s try it now. You’ve just put your horn together and are ready to play. Blow one note – any pitch, just blow. Hold it as long as you can. Now play that one note repeatedly with a staccato articulation; fast or slow repetitions. Play it loud and play it soft. Add a second pitch and repeat the process. There is no correct way to do this. There is no wrong way either. Explore the sounds of your instrument. It may lessen any self-consciousness you feel to close your eyes when you improvise.

This is for you and no one else. Improvise a little every day to have the experience of playing without judgment. Remember, this is a gift to yourself, just because.

4. Get proper rest and eat well.
Your mother may have said something similar to you the night before a big test or job interview. Sleep is the way your body recharges itself. Food is fuel for your body. It follows then that when you are recharged and adequately fueled, you can accomplish great things. Like hitting that altissimo B and pianissimo low Bb on the sax. Like making a smooth and quick transition between A and B over the break on the clarinet.

5. Start each day singing.
You will be astonished at how singing some every day will make you a better musician. Not to mention, how it will give you joy.

You don’t have to limit yourself to making music on your horn. Make music with your first instrument – your voice. You have a lifetime of experience using your voice. Your first sounds as an infant had pitch. Perhaps your mother repeated those sounds back to you, matching your pitch. Have you ever noticed how people talk to babies? We sing! We modulate our voices to rise and fall in pitch. This is very interesting to a baby’s ears. These are baby’s first ear training lessons.

Open your mouth and say ‘la’. Now say ‘la’ and hold it out as long as you can. Just for fun, vary the pitch of ‘la’ as you say it. At what point does saying become singing?
Sing ‘la la la la laaaa’ – first on a low pitch, then on a high pitch. Start the first ‘la’ on a middle pitch and slide down or slide up on ‘la la la laaaa’.

Go ahead, forget this ‘la la la’ stuff and sing a song! It doesn’t take long before I am ready to burst out singing “Oh What A Beautiful Morning.”

These five tips cover a wide area of ground, from the fastidious to the philosophical. I’d love to hear from you about your experience with these suggestions. Comment directly to me using the form on my website or comment below.

Bookmark: