Hey Reader,

It’s the end of Youth Orchestra audition season here in San Jose. One of the most important parts of preparation for an audition is reed strategy. I personally prefer to make a boatload of reeds in the month leading up to an audition, break them in one at a time, and keep making reeds until I have 10-15 good reeds in my case; but I realize that most of my students don’t have the (seeming) luxury of acquiring new reeds in response to reeds that don’t turn out the way they want. (Not all my reeds turn out!)

Most of my students purchase 2 to 3 reeds a month, and by the end of the month the reeds are well and truly dead. For many students it’s a financial decision: reeds cost between $28-35 these days, and that’s a hefty price tag for most families, especially with shipping costs on top of that per-reed fee.

This got me thinking about the break-in period of a reed and the different approaches one can take to the process of breaking a new reed in. It can be very playing-heavy, letting the reed change as you play on it, or it can be quite tool-heavy with the player making fine-tuning adjustments quite often as the reed adjusts to being played.

Historically I’m the type of reedmaker that is impatient and plays on the nearly-finished reed. This has been to my detriment occasionally. The micro-climates of the Bay Area mean that the humidity, elevation, and temperature of my home can be massively different from a hall just a 45 minute drive away. I’ve shown up to gigs many times thinking that the reed I’d just finished would be perfect, and then ended up hating that reed and playing a partially finished reed and finishing it between rehearsals.

I can’t decide if this is under-preparation, lack of patience to finish a reed, or just the unique experience of being a freelancer without a regular orchestra to play with consistently. I can say that I’ve developed the skill to make a terrible reed work temporarily, then the knife skills to go home (or to the hotel) and adjust the newest reed to suit my needs.

Something that I think is essential to the practice of oboists who do not make all their reeds is learning to play on nearly finished reeds so that you can break the reed in to your specifications. The break in process may take a few days, or it may take a week if you really drag your feet and refuse to play on the reed for longer than 5-10 minutes at a time, but eventually the reed will settle down and be comfortable to play on.

During the break-in process I think the oboist needs to come to understand what the reed wants from the embouchure and the airstream. As experienced players will know, this varies greatly from reed to reed - oh the joys of making sound with an organic material! - but each reedmaker’s products tend to have similar requirements of air and embouchure.

I view the break-in period on reeds from a maker you haven’t tried before to be a process of figuring out how I can do less to get more from the reed. By this I mean that I try to accomplish my warm up with as little embouchure manipulation of the reed as possible and just try to adapt the intensity, direction, and size of my airstream to the way the reed feels.

That said, there are things you’ll want to adjust with your knife like resistance or response, and you may decide that the pitch center isn’t as high as you want so you may clip the tip, but part of the break in process is learning what the reed wants. Only once you’ve figured out how the reed wants to be played can you feel comfortable with reeds from the new-to-you maker.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I always have students advancing their skills and moving to harder reeds, and I’ve had a good 5-6 make swaps in the last few weeks. Most of the time this involves a change from one reedmaker to another, and I coach students through the process of how to approach a new reed for the first time. The new reeds are almost always harder, so they need a new approach to air support consistency and a more gentle embouchure.

So, when you get your new batch of reeds, whether they’re from the maker you know and understand or a new maker you’re trying, go into the break-in period trying to get out of the reed’s way and determine what the reed wants.

Until next time,

Alli

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