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EXCERPT
All reeds are individual objects. To achieve uniform performance qualities, they must be treated as such. If all reeds were cut to the same dimensions, they would display differences in tone, strength, and intonation. These differences would be caused by material variations; such as, density, grain structure, and warping tendencies.
The qualities of reeds will display similarities of which the player can take advantage. Specifically, upper blades of all new reeds comprised of medium density cane can be matched in thickness and taper. These matchings will produce reeds with uniform tone qualities.
When the upper blade has been correctly cut, the detrimental qualities of a new reed can usually be traced to the lower areas. The greater proportion of wood in this area is the major factor determining the strength and pitch of the reed.
When a reed is placed into vibration, stresses are placed on its fibers. As a result of these stresses, the reed will quickly change from its static shape (resting shape) to its dynamic shape (playing shape). Although some cutting can be done while the reed is in its static shape, complete balancing must be done while the reed is in its dynamic shape.
No matter how thoroughly the blade is balanced on the first playing session, the internal tension of the fibers will pull the reed back into its static shape when it is allowed to rest for several hours. When the reed is vibrated into its dynamic shape on the next playing session, the air leaks will return and require additional cutting of the lower areas. This time the air leaks will not be as severe as during the preceding session; and less balancing will be needed. This process will be repeated until the reed stabilizes or until the player otherwise determines that the reed is ready for performance.
Vibrated cane will display a swelling action that affects each reed in its own way. When this happens, an upper blade that has been precut to exact specifications will reveal random areas that are now too thick. The thick areas will prevent the left and right sides from vibrating evenly, and the tone will become distorted.
Water weight should be evenly distributed between the left and right sides of the blade. When only one side of the upper blade is too thick, it will contain a greater weight of water than the opposite side. This results in inertia imbalance as the reed vibrates at hundreds of times per second.
Cutting and balancing should be early in the reed life as this parallels the reed tendencies to warp and swell the greatest amounts during its earliest hours of play. If the initial balancing is delayed for too long, removing large amounts of wood might destroy the reed.
The emphasis of this book is to create fully balanced reeds because this allows the most complete discussion of the forces that control all single reeds. But no matter how wonderfully these reeds can be made to play, maintaining an adequate supply takes too much time.
Quick cut reeds, however, can be rapidly produced. A quick cut reed is a factory cut reed that has been placed through one or two break in sessions before being used for performance. These reeds will outplay factory cuts nearly every time because they will be partially balanced while the reeds are in their dynamic shapes.
To produce closely matched, balanced upper blades, the dial indicator and reed knife have proved to be the most efficient tools. The dial indicator is a clockwork type micrometer used in conjunction with a measuring gridwork. The advantage of this tool is that the curves of the blade can be adjusted with greater accuracy than eyesight and intuition would allow. The reed knife is the most accurate tool for adjusting reed blades because it will remove exact amounts of wood. A light cutting stroke applied to a small area of will remove about .0001inch of wood. This means that 5strokes will remove .0005inch, 10strokes will remove .001inch, and so on. This means that reed upper blades can be balanced to tolerances of less than 1/2thousandth of an inch in thickness.
As physical imbalances are removed from a reed, it will evolve to a state of equilibrium, characterized by the even distribution of stress loads and by each reed area cooperating with the actions of the others.
The state of equilibrium is desirable in a reed, but a well balanced reed is only a precisely shaped piece of wood. It is the player's ability to create music with it that is most important. From the player's requirements to make music, the qualities of tone, strength, and intonation will emerge as the major criteria that determine the success or failure of a reed.
Tone, strength, and intonation are an interdependent force group, which means that when one quality is adjusted, the character of the other two will also be changed.
Although the lower areas of the reed provide the foundation of its stiffness, the upper blade must also contribute to the reed strength. Even though the upper blade function is to establish the tone quality, the interdependent quality of stiffness must be considered in the upper blade design.
Because of the individual nature of each piece of cane, finished reeds will display differences in tone and strength. But if these variations are within the ranges that are acceptable to the player, the tone and strength may be considered to be correctly expressed.
Intonation, on the other hand, is a rigid specification that is not subject to artistic interpretation. And all intonation problems must be adjusted even though the tone and strength will be changed as a result.
The general rule for adjusting intonation is that:
REMOVING WOOD FROM THE BLADE WILL LOWER THE PITCH WHILE WEAKENING THE STRENGTH AND REDUCING THE BUZZ IN THE TONE; AND ADDING WOOD TO THE BLADE (BY CLIPPING THE TIP) WILL RAISE THE PITCH WHILE INCREASING THE STRENGTH AND ADDING BUZZ TO THE TONE.
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PREFACE
xiv
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