WTF?! How should I look after my reeds?

BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE

 

Welcome to our series, What the Fact?!

Here, we explore the world of reeds with David Thomas. He is the head of woodwind at ANAM, after all.

David had his own training at the Vienna Conservatorium and University of Melbourne before being named associate principal clarinet with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and, in 2000, principal clarinet of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

He has worked in his role at ANAM since 2008, and teaches clarinet and chamber music here and at the University of Melbourne.

Hacking the complexities of reeds, reed storage, reed travel, reed water-logging…

 

David, when did you first realise what you were getting yourself into by picking a reed instrument? 

I should start by saying clarinet and saxophone players have a much easier time of it than double-reed (oboe and bassoon) players. My wife is a bassoonist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and I won’t pretend that reeds are such a major issue in my own life. There is certainly a lot to get right with clarinet reeds, however.

I guess there wasn’t a sudden dawning in my understanding: your requirements of a reed become more specific as your skills on the instrument grow, and the trick is staying ahead of your musical requirements by preparing enough reeds to find a good one, and learn how to adjust them to get the best out of them.

There are some obvious factors in sounding your best on a reed instrument —  the quality of the instrument (and mouthpiece for single-reed players), as well as how much you’ve practiced, and then there’s the reed.

The reed has to suit you and your instrument, but there’s no one reed for every situation and every piece. Often in orchestra, we’ll use different reeds for each piece on the program, and double-reed players will often use two or three reeds for one piece, carefully chosen in their practice and during rehearsals to produce the best and most consistent result for each section of the music.

On clarinet, the factors here are the size of the orchestration (how much heft you need in your sound), and the musical style of the piece. Double-reed players often use a specific reed for a low, quiet section, or for a very high passage. Clarinet is easier in this regard, because most of our reeds will play a full dynamic range in any register of the instrument.

What would you say are the biggest technical challenges or frustrations facing reed players?

Reeds wear out, particularly if you practice a lot or have a lot of rehearsals and performances. This is the main frustration. Some people find modern synthetic reeds suitable for performing on, but as of yet I’m not one of those people. So I’m stuck with cane reeds.

Every piece of cane is subtly different, so no two reeds cut to the same shape will respond the same or sound the same. The challenges facing reed players boil down to having the right reed for the situation:

• Different repertoire requires different reeds —  sometimes depth and warmth of sound is paramount, sometimes it’s brilliance and ‘cut’ you need, other times it’s delicacy of response, or a certain size of dynamic range, etc. etc.
• Different acoustics need different reeds —  the larger the hall, the more projection is required, and some reeds have more ‘core’ in the sound than others (core helps projection). More resonant acoustics often make the reed feel harder, so you might need to find a more nimble, responsive reed. Drier, less reverberant acoustics can be very revealing of any ‘dirt’ in the reed’s sound, and also require greater warmth of sound if you’re not to sound thin.
• Also, the higher you are above sea-level, the harder your reed feels, and changes in atmospheric humidity make reeds change in their behaviour from day to day, too. So there are lots of factors which affect how a reed feels, and when you’re preparing your reeds at home you need to bear all of these in mind.

Arriving at rehearsal with a range of blown-in, ready-to-go reeds is really important. If you take your music seriously, you will feel a little embarrassed and frustrated if your colleagues hear you play on a reed that prevents you making the right sort of sounds with enough control. Of course, we all find ourselves in that situation sometimes, but being ‘professional’ is about having the skills and thoroughness of preparation to minimise this.

Let’s talk about reed preparation.

Preparation… This is where it gets time-consuming and frustrating. Cane reeds need to be ‘blown in’. When they’re new, they get water-logged quickly. Playing on a water-logged reed makes it deteriorate fast. So you play on it in short bursts of just a few minutes for the first five or six times, let it dry out in between.

I’ll start a box or two of reeds (10 or 20) at a time, and I’ll do that a few times each year. You can’t really tell what a reed is going to be like when it’s new. But after those initial gentle sessions, avoiding aggressive dynamics or extreme registers, it will start to settle down and you can start to make adjustments. Those adjustments are necessary for most of us, depending on how well the reeds you choose match your mouthpiece and your embouchure, and adjusting reeds becomes an increasingly important part of your skill as an instrumentalist. They are the subject of lots of lessons and lots of books.

It’s all about balancing the resistance of the two sides of the reed so the whole blade of the reed vibrates evenly. The relative resistance of the front and the back of the reed is something I think a lot about these days, too.

As the MSO’s principal clarinettist, I’m assuming you have a pretty good system to keep your reeds safe and in good condition. How do you like to store your reeds?

I just use an old-fashioned wooden reed case with a plate of glass inside on which up to 12 reeds sit flat. I got this case from one of my teachers, so I’m glad it’s lasted. It’s needed gluing back together once so far…

This little box has my treasures: the reeds that have survived my work on them at home and are good enough to play in public. I rotate them a little, so they get a good chance to dry out (I think that helps their longevity), but I’ll always try to use the same reed or two reeds for a run of orchestral rehearsals and performances.

I like to soak reeds in water before playing them, and rinse reeds in water afterwards — I believe saliva hastens the decay of the cane, and we want them to remain springy and vibrant-sounding for as long as possible.

Assuming you follow this process strictly, how long does a good reed last for you? (And how can you tell when it’s time to throw one away?)

I hope to get two or three or even four weeks of orchestra from a reed. They’ll generally last for 2 weeks, so about 30 hours of playing. That comes after the blowing-in process at home. From then on, they gradually lose responsiveness, flexibility and vibrancy. Some pieces really need a fresher reed, whereas sometimes you can get away with playing a reed which was great but is getting slightly tired. Some music is tougher on reeds (with lots of loud or high playing, or aggressive articulation) and for those pieces you might avoid using reeds which are in their prime, or not quite blown-in enough to withstand an onslaught.

Also, I don’t practice at home on my best reeds — once they’re well adjusted and blown-in, they’re only for work. At home, I play new reeds and old reeds.

What are the biggest mistakes that owners of reeds can make?

Playing reeds for too long, too soon. If you blow them in gradually and carefully, you’ll get about 10 times longer life compared with playing continually on a brand new reed. Think of the lifespan of a reed as a curve, with a middle part where it is at it’s best: consistent and vibrant. Blowing it in carefully will elongate and optimise that middle part of the curve.

How would you encourage others to care for their reeds?

Keep them clean, dry them carefully on your sleeve or with a tissue before putting them away (if they stay wet in the case, they’ll warp), and keep blowing in new ones so you aren’t stuck when your best reed dies!

Keep your reeds away from the dog, also.

What should reed players keep in mind when they’re on the road and travelling with reeds?

Some people find reeds are more reliable stored in an airtight container with some form of humidity control — you just have to be careful they don’t go mouldy.

If the weather is very changeable, or if I’m travelling, I put the reed case in a snap-lock bag so the reeds don’t get a shock of different humidity, particularly on aeroplanes.

At home, I generally don’t seal them up, and just let them do what they want from day to day.

The other thing to remember when travelling is that your best reed at home might not be the best one in another city, so travel with plenty of options.

When it’s time to buy a new one, how can you tell how to find a great reed? What do you look for?

Clarinet reeds come in boxes of 10, and you don’t get to select them unless you go to the factory. Generally, the best-sounding (most focused and vibrant) and most resilient reeds are the ones with good, strong looking dark fibres all the way across the tip, as seen when you hold the reed up to the light. Most reed manufacturers these days seem to have good supplies of cane which is pretty consistent, so you blow in every reed in the box and hope for the best.

Different mouthpieces suit different cuts (shapes) of reeds from different manufacturers, and it’s important to keep an open mind and try different reeds from time to time.

Finally, how much does this advice differ from instrument to instrument? Clarinet to sax to oboe…

All the same principles apply to clarinet and saxophone reeds. With double-reeds, the rules of storage and care are pretty similar (especially concerning pets: my wife once had a sad day when the cat found a rack of 10 new bassoon reeds drying on mandrel tips — presumably, the cat didn’t find a tasty one as they were all munched).

Because double-reed players have to spend time constructing their reeds, and those reeds are much more complex in design than a single-reed, I can’t really pretend as a clarinettist that I know much about reeds. Single-reed players have it pretty easy, really…

ANAM musicians will perform with oboist (and double reed superstar) Dudu Carmel across Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane this August – details on the ANAM website.

 

Check back in soon for our next What the Fact?! with professionals in the music industry.

 

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