Video of protecting my reeds from changing weather patterns

[Michael]

I live in southern US where humidity is constantly a problem any my poor reeds have been victims of these changing weather patterns. A reed I play today may be a totally different reed of sorts tomorrow; it can be very frustrating and annoying! I’ve started to take new measures to protect my reeds from these changing weather patterns that I have to deal with. I’m not doing anything what would be considered ‘new’ from what other Sax players have known for a long time, but it’s only been a little over a week since I started taking extra steps to protect my reeds and I’m seeing a huge difference in my reeds 🙂 So I wanted to share this with everyone here..these little things can make a big difference 🙂 Here’s a couple of links to the reed care tools that I got and I’m showing here in this video:

http://www.wwbw.com/Vandoren-Glass-Reed-Resurfacer-and-Reed-Stick-462749-i1143723.wwbw
http://www.amazon.com/DAddario-Multi-Instrument-Humidity-Clarinets-Saxophones/dp/B001SN7VGO?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01

[Anonymous]

Michael – have you tried storing a reed in liquid when its not being played on? I would give it a try, it might just solve your problems,
especially in your area.

[Anonymous]

sorry – got called away, so didn’t have time to watch your video, but just got back and watched it.

the humidifier system looks cool, but i’m ok with the liquid storage.
Forget to add when i store reeds in liquid, i keep the reed in the little platic cases to keep the reed flat.

As for The glass equipment, it’s very similar to what the old french sax players used to do, i do what the old players used to do, soak a new reed for 10 mins, then dry it off, place it on a flat surface (kitchen side) and rub it in a circle for a couple of mins, the idea is to seal the pores. Then i rub the my thumb nail and press down hard on the top of the reed to seal it. Works fine for me.

I did use to shave both sides of a reed with the sharp edge of scissors, found that helped, only problem the reeds never last very long once they were shave – so went back to the french system.

[Anonymous]

btw – when i bought my guardella last year i remember when i played higher up it squeeked. Had nothing to do with the reed, what it was in my case, when you play a metal mouthpiece for the first time, because the mouthpiece is different in size to a ebonite mouthpiece where you put your lips round it, your lips can lose the seal when changing wind speed while blowing higher up notes.

I noticed the same thing with theo wanne, he got a pro to try out his mouthpiece, and the pro not used to very bright mouthpieces was squeaking like crazy, in the end theo took it off the guy and got someone else used to bright mouthpieces to play itvand had no problems with it.

I’m betting everyone who gets a new guardella will squeek for the first few weeks, so don’t get discouraged if it does happen.

[Author]

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