Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange
Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [reeds]

A piece of thin cane, metal, or other material, sometimes doubled, that vibrates in a current of air to produce a sound on a musical instrument.

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What is the benefit of soaking double reeds in water?

My bassoon teacher advises me to soak my reed in water before playing. Apparently water has properties that my saliva alone doesn't. Why would this be useful? Also I have seen Oboe players doing this, but not Clarinettists, Saxophonists (or anyone…
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Why isn't there a reed aerophone with valves?

Most reed instruments instruments have keys or finger holes. Most brass instruments have valves. There are brass instruments with keys, though, like the (fairly unsuccessful) keyed bugle. I can find no mention anywhere of a valved reed wind…
naught101
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How do I know where to place holes on an instrument?

I've been trying to build a double reeded instrument out of plastic straws. I've run into a problem though, when I place fingering holes, the instrument doesn't seem to follow the $$f=/frac{nv}{4L}$$ formula. Is there a formula that would allow me…
tox123
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Why can't oboes play softly while clarinets can?

Clarinets are famed for being able to play diminuendo and crescendo to and from niente. Oboes, however, have trouble playing in very low dynamics. The difference in construction of oboe and clarinet reeds/mouthpieces is obvious. What are the…
oboecat
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Possible Harmonium/Reed Organ Synthesizing Techniques

I am working on a project to make a synthesizer for RaspberryPi capable of playing Harmonium/Reed Organ using external MIDI keyboard. I am making it in Python 2.7 using Numpy. Till now I have completed first phase of my project which includes…
DCP
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Is this theoretical "reed" acoustically possible?

I suppose this isn't exactly a reed, but it seems like a method of producing a sound that I've never seen on any instrument, at least on any commonly known instrument. This "reed" consists of two rubber membranes tightly stretched across the bore of…
Sam
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What is the best position for a Sax reed?

What is the best position for a Sax reed? Is it to be level with the front edge of the mouthpiece or slightly ahead or behind the front edge? By how much. Is this the same for Clarinet too? I have played flute for about 40 years of various styles…
BlownInTheWind
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Adjusting clarinet or saxophone reeds

How do various techniques and equipments for adjusting reeds compare? e.g. (blade perpendicular strokes) (Tom Ridenour's Tools + DVD) (David Bourque's Instructions) (Ben Armato's Machine) Reeds bought from stores, even of the same…
user1217
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Strength of clarinet plastic reeds compared to wooden

I play the clarinet at an intermediate-advanced level, and I have recently joined an orchestra. Our conductor wants all the woodwinds to switch to plastic reeds, since they are more audible in the presence of a great number of string instruments. I…
Edward Jiang
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Effect of Rubbing Alcohol Upon Reeds

Apparently it is common to briefly soak reeds in rubbing alcohol to disinfect them. This could be due to sickness, reed-sharing, etc. Any thoughts on how damaging this would be to the cane?
user3169
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If I were to switch from playing clarinet (6 years) to starting oboe, how hard would it be?

So I'm aware that oboe is one of the hardest instruments to pick up and learn (partially because of embouchure, reed maintenance, etc.) but I love the instrument and I'd really like to start learning. I've been playing for 6 years currently on the…
Rice Pudding Whale
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Why do bagpipes drones use single reeds?

At least in the Great Highland Bagpipes, the drones use single reeds while the chanter uses double reeds. What is the reason for this, and would the bagpipes still work if the chanter had single reeds and/or the drones had double reeds?
axelotl
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Is it possible to play all melody songs on 10 hole diatonic harmonica?

I know that melody songs can be easily played on a chromatic harmonica. I have horner Chrometta 12 as well as Horner golden melody. However I feel tunes from 10 holes diatonic harmonica are better than that of chromatic. Also note transitions are…
Angom
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Is there a pickup for Melodica?

I've got a couple of melodicas I want to run through guitar pedals, especially distortion and wah and then run the signal into a guitar amp. Is there some kind of pickup I can put in or attach to the melodica? The pickup can't really be a…
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Diatonic harmonica: How to play the draw bend with the three semitones down (effectively)?

For the diatonic harmonica, in the 3rd draw position B, how to play the draw bend with the three semitones down (marked in blue rectangle) B, Bb, A? I could play a semitones down, most easily in the 1st draw position D, for the C#. If there are…
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