Reeds for Beginners

[pete]

(As I threatened, in another thread.)

FWIW, to me, reeds are reeds. My favorite, because they are the most consistent, are Vandoren. However, I heard that the patent for mass-producing reeds is held by Rico and everyone uses that patent .

Also, as full disclosure dictates, the reeds I used when I was playing bari professionally and semi-professionally are no longer manufactured: Vandoren Modele Jazz. My order of preference, when I ran out of those, was regular Vandoren, LaVoz, Rico Royal and then regular Rico. Again, the only reason why I preferred Vandoren over all these is because they were consistent: consistent thickness, consistent cane, consistent quality. Why the Vandoren Model Jazz reeds were my favorite was because they had the consistency and were a good 3/4 LONGER than any other reeds, and those fit my very long, fat Sigurd Rascher mouthpiece just great.

For most beginners, an instructor will tell you to get a 2.5 or medium soft strength reed (reeds are graded from 1 to 5 or from very soft to very hard). Depending on the person and the mouthpiece, he might say to buy a harder or softer reed.

* Further, you should have a reed that is not chipped, split or warped and is positioned correctly on your mouthpiece. *

As a suggestion for the beginner, you shouldn't buy too many reeds: a box of five should be fine. After a couple lessons, you may find out that you need a different strength and reeds aren't that cheap anymore (about $2+ each). For that same reason, I don't recommend that you buy a synthetic reed, starting out. Stick with wood; leave the plastic, plasticover, etc. for when your embochure is consistent (some synthetic reeds are fairly decent. I used the Rico Plasticover for awhile).

 

[jbtsax]

Excellent post Pete. I would just emphasize that the strength of the reed is more important than the brand at first. The Rico or any other low cost brand (except any from China) are suitable for a beginning sax player.

If the reed is too soft for the beginning player, tone production will be easy at first, but the embouchure will not develop the muscle tone needed.

If the reed is too hard at first, the student will learn to "bite down" too hard from the top and bottom since the corner muscles are not developed yet.

I had all of my students start with a #2 Rico (or equivalent) until the tone production stabilized---usually 2 to 3 weeks on average. Then they would move to a #2 1/2. This was in a classroom setting. In private lessons it was possible to match the reed strength to the student's mouthpiece in a more exact fashion.

John

 

[SOTSDO]

Even when in high school in the early 1960's, I noticed an alarming trend to go to harder reed strengths. No doubt the users felt that the harder the reed, the more 'professional' the setup. Under this logic, 4 and 4 1/2 would occasionally show up.

While I used to play a 3 1/2 Van Dorn on clarinet and bass clarinet, over the past twenty years I have gone to a more open mouthpiece facing (I'm using a very open Selmer bass mouthpiece these days) with 2 1/2 Van Dorns. I just don't play enough clarinet and bass clarinet any longer to keep up with the stiffer reeds.

 

[Gandalfe]

The most common problem I have with young students is with the placement of the reed on the mouthpiece. For beginners I recommend that a little tiny sliver of the mouthpiece tip be showing behind the thin end (top) of the reed. The reed should be centered on the mouthpiece table and often the best way to check this is to run your fingers along the rails on either side of the reed.

 

[pete]

I used to play 3.5s on just about everything. For sax, this was more-or-less a given, because I used the Sigurd Rascher mouthpieces, which seems designed for harder reeds. Why I used them on clarinet, I don't know. I guess 3s felt too soft.

I like to mention that Benny Goodman used 1.5s and 2s.

I think I'll cross-post in the clarinet area: the single-reed discussion is about the same for both clarinet and sax.