Reed width problem

Oli54321

Hello everyone,

I've joined this forum just now because I'm hoping to get some advice.

I've inherited a (Bb) clarinet that hasn't been played for about 15 years, and after cleaning the pads it seems to work fine - and I've been teaching myself the basics. I thought I should get some new reeds rather than use the old ones, but the ones I've been sold (Rico 1.5s) are a very different size to the ones I was using before - they're about 16mm wide at the tip rather than the 13mm of the ones the clarinet came with. This means they slightly overhang the edges of the mouthpiece. It's still possible to play, but seems a bit harder to get an airtight seal and good tone.

I don't know if I've been sold the wrong thing, or just slightly different reeds that I need to get used to. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks very much!
 
First, pictures are always better. A thousand words and all that.

I think you have four possibilities:

* You got the wrong reeds. It happens: the retailer accidentally throws a Bb soprano sax reed in the box of Bb clarinet reeds, or something like that.
* You're using a very old mouthpiece and it's designed that way. I think it was my 19-teens curved soprano sax that had an original mouthpiece where the reeds "hung over" by a very slight amount.
* You don't have a Bb clarinet. It's been awhile since I played Eb sopranino clarinet, but the mouthpiece is definitely smaller than a Bb clarinet mouthpiece.
* You don't have a Bb clarinet mouthpiece.
 
Hi Pete - thanks for the reply. I've put a couple of photos below. Hopefully you can just about see what's happening.

I think I can eliminate your last three suggestions: from the history I know of it, I assume it was made in the 90s, so no antique mouthpiece. It's definitely a Bb Clarinet (or so my guitar tuner tells me). And I assume the mouthpiece is the correct one - it was used by a teenager to get to about grade 5, so I expect it's a standard student model that hasn't been messed around with.

So looks like I'm going back to the shop to swap the reeds..?


photo 1.JPGphoto 2.JPG
 
Looks to me like an alto sax or perhaps an alto clarinet reed.
 
I took the reeds back to the shop today and found out that they'd sold me an alto sax reed by mistake: someone had put them on the wrong shelf. So they exchanged them, of course.

Thanks very much for the help everyone!
 
pete said:
* You got the wrong reeds. It happens: the retailer accidentally throws a Bb soprano sax reed in the box of Bb clarinet reeds, or something like that.
Click to expand...
I'm psychic. Or psychotic. One of those.
 
:) I was a bit annoyed about having to go half an hour out of the way across London to sort it out. But I suppose these things happen.
 
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