Moving Time…

As we speak, my house is completely destroyed as I am about to pack up my computer, reed desk, and everything else. I’ll continue to blog, but won’t be able to do so as consistently as I have been the past several days. Thank you for your faithful readership. When I started this, I would have never dreamed of ever getting 144 hits as I did yesterday.

Another reader question

You bring up a good subject. I must confess my reed experience is limited to my highschool teacher and the Jay Light book. One of the problems I’ve always had with the Jay Light book is his suggestion that he nearly-finishes one section of the reed before starting the next. So he nearly-finishes the tip (so the reed vibrates), then nearly-finishes the heart, then nearly-finishes the back, and the reed plays wonderfully. I find that when I do that I end up making the tip too thin (just so it will crow something). The alternative is I leave the tip too thick and scrape the heart too much to get it crowing well, then when I go back to finish the tip I end up with a duck.

So what I end up doing is scraping all three regions in parallel, but I’m never sure of the back.

So where is my rambling going? When you scrape, do you thin the heart and tip first and get a playing (but over-tony) before scraping the back at all? Or do you put an initial scrape on the back (say a 3 out of 10) and get the heart & tip to a 9/10 before finishing the back?

I think all reedmakers have this tendency, particularly if we don’t have perfect technique to get the tip perfectly shaped and the corners perfectly thinned (without tearing them off.)

Often times us reedmakers either

• leave the tip too undefined or thick, and end up whacking out of the heart and back too much, which makes the reed overly mushy and unstable. (When the tip is left thick, it leaves a sense of “false tone”, and as you continue to thin the tip to get more response you are left with a tiny bright sounding reed.)

OR

• overly define the tip so much that you end up playing catch-up with the heart and the back. And by then, you might realize that this reed wants to be a bit longer, or perhaps you need the tip to fall back a bit but this will make your heart too short.

I think there’s a wide variety of reedmakers who have different techniques. Mr. Weber does “everything by feel”. He never measures how long he wraps, but wraps a reed “as long as it can be wrapped and still seal” (I believe this is about 74.5 with his staples and 1-B tip.) He scrapes a bunch off, and keeps clipping and adjusting until he’s completely satisfied, sometimes ending at 68.5, other times closer to 70.

I on the other hand know approximately how long I like to tie, how much I like to clip off initially, and where I should begin my scrape for maximum results.

1. I tie at 74 Tie at 74
2. I profile scrape about down to 63 or so and clip at 71 Profile scrape w/ruler, Profile Scrape behind light
3. Then I set my overlap, and begin thinning the tip area at around my 66 mark, while scraping the heart down to .50 of a mm. I don’t touch the back, unless the opening feels particularly large, so I might encourage it to settle in. Thinning the Tip, Step 3 with ruler, Step 3 w/upside down light, Step 3 w/back light
4. I then like to get the heart and tip vibrating quite a bit. It shouldn’t be too difficult for me to blow and get a wild sound, usually around a G or an A. I then begin to clip. Step 4 w/Left Side tip done, Step 4 w/tip done, funny hill traced, Step 4 w/back light, ,
5. After I clip at 71 or 70, I do the tip up to 70-80%, heart down to .50 at the thickest place, and about .45 on the sides, and begin to scratch the back not really defining the spine or windows (20%?). (Don’t worry about leaving a clear spine at this point. You have to scrape the back down, then “remold” the back to build the spine back up. Even in it’s thickest place, my spine is .55 or so toward the string, and and about .30 in the middle of the back, so I still have to take a lot off.)
6. Now I begin to clip back. First I clip it to 70.5, and then sometimes further down to 70. If it’s still vibrating wildly at 70, I probably took too much off. But if it’s taming down by 70, I begin to set my tip in place. Step 5 and 6 w/ruler
7. Then I go back to the tip and scrape the tip in to 80-90%, heart to .47 or so and the sides down to .42. By now, the reed should be a fully functioning reed, but doesn’t have the depth or roundness that you might desire. But since there isn’t much out of the back, it should be very staple in the high register with perfect C octaves. Step 7 w/o tip layer tracing, w/light upside down, Step 7 w/tip layer tracing, w/light upside down,Step 7 w/ruler
8. Now I begin to scrape the back a lot, down to .35-.32 at the lowest point depending on how hard the cane is (thinner for harder cane, thicker for softer) while leaving 5mm of cane up from the thread. Finally, I try the reed, adjust the tip, clip and thin the corners until I get the right resistance. This is perhaps up to 90%, and my reeds are usually just under 70mm by now. Once the reed has the right resistance in the tip, I adjust the heart so that it feels like it’s vibrating purportionally. This usually leads me to leave it at around .46 in the thickest place, and around .40-.38 on the sides. Finally, I scrape the heck out of the back to make the reed settle in and get the right opening. I also cut the corners inward to focus the air and free up the extreme tip. Step 8, final blade 1, Step 8, final blade 2, Step 8, final reed w/ruler, Step 8, final reed in hand, Step 8, final reed w/back light, Step 8, final reed side profile

The reed was made with Rigotti cane, and turned out to be a pretty darn good reed.

When I set my tip, I think of three imaginary layers, and I scrape the three layers in order. First I scrape a layer that looks like a funny hill. Then, I scrape a more diagonal line that goes clear to the very end of the tip. The third layer is a slight diagonal line toward the end, known as the extreme tip. Most reedmakers have difficulty with the tip because it’s hard to grasp different imaginary layers in one’s own mind. They also often take out the most critical part of the tip, which in my drawing would be between the peak of the funny-looking hill to the very end of the tip. It’s that 1 or 2 mm space, next to invisible to the eye, and can either leave the reed buzzy or give it a dark warm tone, and can make it unstable or dead on.

If the reed tip is thinned and near finished, the rate of taper and the thickness of the funny looking hill often determines how much breath resistance the reed has. (Breath resistance is the resistance you feel as you’re blowing against the reed.)

Also if the reed tip is thinned, The integration line also can determine the response resistance and the actual tonal qualities of the reed. That’s why teachers often dust the upper corners of the heart right behind the integration line along with the corners of the tips; to give the reed more response.

If I was a more patient man, I’d wait a day before I scraped the back in so that the reed could naturally close on it’s own. Then I’d scrape the back in.

The thing about these steps that I’m changing however though (as I mentioned yesterday) was that rather than scraping the heart down to .50 while beginning the tip, I probably should be scraping it down closer to .46 or so. My reeds have just been turning out better.

One final note. All these numbers I’m quoting are RELATIVE, and might not work for you. I truly believe all these numbers are for MY gouge, and if your gouge is different from mine, they might be completely different.

Reed Reviews

An interesting website found here. Looks like a big forum of people who get together and discuss how different reeds work for them.

Perhaps someday I’ll get around to buying a couple. I’d definitely be interested in getting a hold of some of Katherine Needleman’s reeds. I wonder if she scrapes in a Mack style (her high school teacher Joseph Turner was Mack student) or Philly style (she went to Curtis to study with Richard Woodhams.).

A couple updates

I’ve added a sitemeter to my website. Hopefully this will work out okay.

I put a “contact me” link on the side so you can conveniently send me emails.

I have put in an official request for a separate “register” widget, so it’s more clear-cut and easy to follow.

And most importantly…

I have removed the restriction of making people register in order to leave messages. You may now just leave a message, but I believe you have to put in:

• a name (which doesn’t have to be your real name. Try kickbuttoboe or something.)
• an email address. (This should be your real email. Don’t worry, only I will see it and so I can respond privately.)