Jazzaferri
Well-Known Member
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- 2,702
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- Victoria BC Canada
I promised @saxyjt I would describe how I adjust sax reeds as he was curious to know after I sent him a few to try. After years of OCD reed adjusting I came to understand how they work reasonably well and never found one that I couldn't make some sort of improvement on.
STEP 1
Once a reed has been prepared for playing via any of the soak lick or other wetting methods the first thing I do is to determine whether a reed plays easily or not and whether it is balanced. I take the wetted reed and holding it in the correct location on the mouthpiece with my thumb (or use a lig) I gently blow a long tone on the mouthpiece to see if and how well a reed plays normally.
Then I rotate the mpce/reed in my mouth so that one side is completely damped and blow hard enough to get a good solid sound out of the one side. Once a solid tone is achieved I slowly back off and see how evenly and controllably the sound gets quieter and how long it takes to stop. Then I do the same on the other side. At first it would take me a number of trials to determine how well the reed is balanced side to side. This is the most subjective and difficult (IMO) part of learning to adjust reeds....figuring out what needs to be corrected.
If a reed was almost unplayable from the get go I place the reed flat on a piece of glass and take my foam sanding block with 400 grit wet or dri paper wrapped around and give a few strokes starting just before the tip with the block flat on the glass with the wrapped edge of the sandpaper facing the reed tip. I stroke up about halfway up the vamp only a few strokes, just enough to get it to work. Then proceed to check the balance.
STEP 1
Once a reed has been prepared for playing via any of the soak lick or other wetting methods the first thing I do is to determine whether a reed plays easily or not and whether it is balanced. I take the wetted reed and holding it in the correct location on the mouthpiece with my thumb (or use a lig) I gently blow a long tone on the mouthpiece to see if and how well a reed plays normally.
Then I rotate the mpce/reed in my mouth so that one side is completely damped and blow hard enough to get a good solid sound out of the one side. Once a solid tone is achieved I slowly back off and see how evenly and controllably the sound gets quieter and how long it takes to stop. Then I do the same on the other side. At first it would take me a number of trials to determine how well the reed is balanced side to side. This is the most subjective and difficult (IMO) part of learning to adjust reeds....figuring out what needs to be corrected.
If a reed was almost unplayable from the get go I place the reed flat on a piece of glass and take my foam sanding block with 400 grit wet or dri paper wrapped around and give a few strokes starting just before the tip with the block flat on the glass with the wrapped edge of the sandpaper facing the reed tip. I stroke up about halfway up the vamp only a few strokes, just enough to get it to work. Then proceed to check the balance.
