Reed log

G4 and G5 got tips cut, G6 and G7 wired and numbered, G8 and G9 got shaped, beveled and formed. I tried to shape a little wider than my shaper tip with G8 and G9, with the idea of getting a bigger tube which wouldn't present as much problems with shrinking. I tried to add about 1 mm by nudging the cane after cutting one side. This was maybe too much, it looks ginormous, and the forming mandrel went in almost to the tip before I could get a round tube at the butt. I suspect they will play really flat, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Just to think a little harder: 1mm in width = 2 mm in circumference, = 0.6 mm in diameter. At a slope of 0.07, that's 9.1 mm in length, which is about two bocal sizes, ie the difference between a #2 and a #0. But it'll fit more onto the bocal, so shouldn't that bring up the pitch, rather than lowering it? This is actually a bit tricky. The bassoon's bore is a truncated cone, capped by a reed which makes up for the missing volume. The tube of a reed is more or less a continuation of the bassoon bore, so just increasing the tube size would change nothing, if the tube continued a smooth taper down to zero: you'd end up with more tube on the bocal, but the length from bocal to the point would not change. However the tube flattens into the throat and widens into the blades at a fixed position from the tip and butt. So changes which bring the throat and blade of the reed closer to the bocal, such as widening the tube, will shorten the overall length of the bore. Merely widening the whole shape, like I did, will affect the blade and throat as well as the tube, so maybe won't be a win overall, but I think the idea is okay.

Later: painted G4 and G5 with nail polish after they'd dried, 2nd wire to the butt, on the end and about 1 cm up the inside of the tube, wiping with the mandrel. I did this because I was pretty happy with the result of adding nail polish to G3: no loose wires, a dimensionally stable tube, and maybe better tuning. G4 and G5 had shrunk a bit -- as finished blanks, I think they went on the mandrel a few mm (3-4) beyond the mark, and now, after one soak-dry cycle, they go exactly to the mark. Hopefully, with the nail polish added, they'll become stable there.

Again: tube size is stable (yay), but I feel like they leak around the bocal more than others. Maybe the hardness of the nail polish prevents a tight seal.

02/06: Being struck by the difference in size between what I'm currently turning out and my models, M1 and M2, made by a local pro, I decided to try an architecture experiment. M1 is much shorter, ~23.5 mm, as compared eg to G3 at 26.5mm. I clipped G5 down to 25mm, and set about trying to shave it down to a short soft reed. So far it's still pretty resistant, requiring lots of air and lip pressure. But there's still lots of wood, and a prominent spine, so I guess I can keep going.

XXVI, last time

Kay, so this is my last recording of XXVI, at least for awhile. I think it's better than my first attempt, but there's still lots I don't like. But, I don't think those things are improving fast enough to merit the investment of my time. The quaveryness I noted before is less, I think quitting coffee helped, but it's still there as I struggle to bring some notes into tune. I think the intonation is overall better, but I almost hate to check. I know the notes better, and still missed one. Musically, it's still meh, but time to move on.

Light practices

This week: Monday and Tuesday I had rehearsals, but didn't play otherwise, I think Wednesday I missed entirely, Thursday I played a few minutes with the kids, but nothing else, and today I got in about 10 minutes of long tones in the morning, which left me pretty tired. I think I'm feeling the effects of not enough actual practicing. Previously I'd managed to get into a cycle of almost an hour a day, which I ended up spending virtually all on long tones, scales and intervals. This was pretty good: you'd think that technique wouldn't improve at all without fast playing, but in fact it does, and in trying to come back, working on strength and tone is what it's about anyway. I think this is more serious practice than I'd ever done before, actually. Even at music camps, I'd be playing for many hours a day, but very little of that was long tones. So it really helps. After about an hour, I'd feel that I was done, but I'd also have run out of time and chops, and so would stop for the day, without have played a note of music. I suspect that people who are actually serious do multiple practices a day, so they can develop tone in one session, work their pieces in another, and so on. Still, an hour of long tones helps a lot. Even ten minutes is much better than zero, and helps maintain the practice of getting over the initiation barrier, but I doubt ten minutes a day is sustainable long term. I need to work hard enough to get tired, work hard enough to get some positive feedback -- improve something, learn something, have fun, just something. Too short, and it's hard for that to happen.

I've also starting thinking about the balance between practicing and making reeds. My initial goal was to learn enough so that I didn't feel trapped and stymied, and I think I'm there: I can now make reeds that I'm willing to play on. In fact, virtually every reed I've worked has been adequate at some level, though obviously they are all different, so I no longer fear being left with no reeds. Now, attaining excellence is something else, which will require a sustained effort over a long period. But absolute excellence in reeds is not the goal, rather it is a means to an end, and only one of many required for the ultimate goal of making music. So it would make sense to play more, and reed less.

In a similar vein, more observations. Awhile ago I pulled out one of the first reeds I made, one I'd abandoned for weeks. It played fine. It wasn't really worn out, maybe not surprising given that I've been moving on quickly to the next set of reeds, and also the fact that how long they last depends on how heavily they're used. So I've been driving my reedmaking by the need to practice reedmaking, rather than consuming reeds. Indeed, reeds can last a long time: in the Lacey article I quoted before, he uses a batch of 6-8 reeds for "many months", cleaning them by sonication after each use. I'd think that would help a lot, because I think the primary way reeds age is by accumulation of dead skin material in the pores of the blade, leading to dampening and deadening of the sound.

And finally, I was struck by a comment Norman Herzberg made, in an old interview I found. He was asked which was more important, time-wise: practicing or making reeds. A sharp question, because you can't just answer that both are critical: everyone has limited time, so there has to be a tradeoff. And he was a legendary expert both in teaching students and making reeds. His answer? Practicing, no question. In particular, without enough practice, you may not have the playing skill to demand more of your reeds, which is necessary to making them better. So, more practice, I guess, the answer to everything, no matter the question.

Future of classical music

I added another blog, Sandow, a prof at Julliard interested in the future of classical music. He has a book, which no doubt I ought to read, and lots of old blog posts, with many interesting discussions, and also a class. This being the internet age, he has the syllabus, readings, and listening material all online and generally available, so folks like me can follow along at home. The course title is Classical Music in an Age of Pop, which I think harmonizes pretty well with my thinking at the moment. Yeah, the community orchestras I'm playing in do spent their time on the traditional literature, familiar to musicians and their loyal audiences. Pro orchestras it's the same deal: I think this is not lack of imagination, so much as just plain respect for the audience -- people like to listen to music that they know. Popular music works, in part, because it's popular: a self-fulfilling status which allows large numbers of people to be familiar with it, know the tunes, maybe have it help define a phase in their life. So people interested in the future of classical music are thinking about how it fits in.

Now me, I always enjoyed playing more than listening. So when I discovered that I really liked contemporary pop, and electronic dance music (YouTube has really helped me experience lots of music I didn't know I might enjoy), the thought occurred to me that it'd be fun to play music that too. But it's not easy. Pop is very clean, very precise, technically. You can get away with a lot of garbage, playing in the middle of an orchestra, that would be totally unacceptable in dance music. And rhythmically, pop can be extremely sophisticated and precise. So I have a lot of work to do, if I want to eg play Basshunter or Lady Gaga tunes, and have them work, musically. Still, it's something to work towards.

Another recording

This is on reed G2, another hymn. The D's above the staff don't feel stable, and the D's in the staff seem nasal -- I wonder if these are related.



Update: Gah, that's terrible. Maybe I should practice getting the notes right before uploading. Here's changing just production (reverb, panning, bass boost). Helps a bit I think.



Second update: another hack at it, rerecording every part. This is better I think, though if I listen to each track on its own, I still hear lots to improve. And that's with about two hours of work on 20 seconds of extremely easy music. *sigh* (Reverb is small chamber, 22%. At 100% the exported result was noticably softer, wonder what's up with that. Yeah, normalize was on.)

[MP3]

Notes on G2 - G7

G2 and G3 are currently in finishing. G3 I tried out nail polish on the tube, instead of my usual lack of treatment. (Ie 4 wires, but otherwise bare cane.) I'm hoping for increased tube stability, since mostly I have trouble with the tubes shrinking. I've found that if I don't tighten wires 3 and 4 when they get loose, the tube expands out to them when it gets wet, but the loose wires are annoying. So far all I've learned is that nail polish tastes bad.

G4 and G5 I took off mandrels, touched up the bevel with a flat file, wired and labelled. When fastening the butt end wire (wire 3), the reeds were about 3mm beyond the mark. I'm hoping this is enough diameter to allow them to still fit on post-shrinkage. On one of them (G4 I think) I tried half tightening wire 1, then dragging the twist around to the other side and finishing tightening. I'm hoping that this will balance the blades, since the blade opposite the twist seems to get extra arch from the wire tension. I never seem to be able to adjust this out with scraping, so I've put up with it. They will stay dry until it's time to cut off the tips and start finishing, sitting as wired blanks on my desk.

G6 and G7 got a touch of sanding, folded, shaped, beveled, and tubes formed. I have a fold-over shaper, which I'm convinced is assymmetric. At least the screw hole in the base of the tip is at about a 10-20 degree angle to the centerline of the tip, which even if the tip itself is symmetric, makes it difficult to get a symmetric shape. Maybe it's just skill, but I end up with a visible left-right assymmetry in the blades. I bevel with a file, aiming for flat surfaces to form a seal for the tube, then clean up with 220 sandpaper. Tubes I form wet, cold, wrapped with two layers of wet string, no wires (to make it easier to open later), and munching the cane through the string with pliers on the back half of the tube only. I'm using a Fox forming mandrel, which is much longer than my holding mandrel, despite its sharper taper: it's about 0.08 (mm diameter change per mm length), instead of the 0.07 of my holding mandrel (matching the conical bore of the bocal and bassoon). I've been putting them on tips to dry which have the 0.07 taper, which means that the throat is getting an extra shove if the reeds are put all the way on, which I have to if the tube is going to be supported while it dries. Aand... I think this is leading to cracking I've been getting in the blade. Have to think about this.

I put in two more pieces of gouged and profiled Golden Bamboo cane to soak. I've been soaking for about a week, changing the water daily. Saturated enough to sink would be good enough to form a tube, but better is to get close to the kind of equilibrium the cane will achieve in use. Lacy 1998 (J IDRS 16) assayed sodium levels in cane water, and showed that it takes a few days for salts to dissolve out of the reed. The claim is that this is the primary form of breaking in of reeds, which I'm not sure I believe, but it seems like it can't hurt. He also advocates ultrasonic cleaning of reeds after use, which makes sense to me, but I don't have the hardware.

Reed throughput

Had two rehearsals this week, one with a new group. I ended up playing mostly on G1, and a bit on R5. R6 I tried out, but still buzzy and out of control. I still think it could be a really nice reed, but it needs to calm down, or be calmed down. I've been trying to be careful with it, but that just means it's still mostly just a blank.

I feel like I'm having some luck understanding intonation and reeds. On one of the two soft ones I was working this weekend, G1 or R5 (can't remember which), I was happy with how it was except for being flat. So I tightened the second wire down hard. The tube shrank substantially there, and the pitch came nicely up. It also felt kinda choked, but still.

I have a new goal for reed throughput. I've made about 10 reeds now, and have learned a great deal, and am developing a certain comfort with the very basic level I'm working at. Learning is logarithmic, though: it'll probably take the next 100 to learn as much again. I can do this in a year, by making two a week. So that's my goal: put two reeds per week through the pipeline.

How to make a saxophone

I'm curious about how things are made. Today, I'm thinking about the bocal, mostly because I maybe need a shorter one, and am reading up. Seems like a lot of money for a metal tube. And hey, if I have to make my own reeds, why not the bocal, too. There's not a lot of info on how bocals are made: I guess sheets of metal, bent into a tube with a seam, silver soldered together, with the nipple soldered in. Dimensions are controlled by the size and shape of the original sheet, and no doubt also by a mandrel and working the tube after forming. The bend is done with a flexible mandrel (series of bead of defined sizes fixed to a flexible string?) or sand. Here's a video of saxophone making, done in a factory, but which probably bears some similarity.

A serious electric bassoon setup

Jazz bassoonist Paul Hanson has a gig playing 380 shows a year with Cirque du Soleil in Tokyo. Here's his rig. Briefly, he's got a bocal pickup (well, pressure transducer -- FRAP) and an overhead mic. The pickup goes into the effects chain: FRAP preamp (Trance Audio), Avalon U5 preamp (tone color), BOSS SuperShifter for adding an octave up in harmony, a Line6 delay modeler, then a volume pedal and out. The sound board can mix the wet (effects) signal with the dry signal from the overhead mic. Less fancy than some of his other rigs, but their band already has an electric guitarist with a full kit of effects, plus Abelton Live, so his job is to sound like a bassoon. I find it interesting how all this stuff gets integrated into a stage context -- piped off to the front-of-house sound board, monitoring room, in-ear monitors plus separate channel so they can talk to each other, tiny light so he can operate his equipment on the darkened stage... plus outlandish makeup and costumes. It's very theater, very much a show.

Next batch of reeds

Yesterday I started finishing three reeds that I made into blanks before Christmas, two Rigotti (R5 and R6), and the first one from the Chinese cane (G1). I'm constantly amazed how different reeds can sound that in principle ought to be identical: same batch of the same cane, same processing, same measurements; yet one sounds bright, and the other stuffy. And amazed as well at the symmetry differences between blades. They all came off the profiler with identical thicknesses, I assume anyway, so thickness is not the only determinant for the arch in the blade. Nothing to do but fix it by scraping, I guess. This evening I formed tubes on two more from the Chinese cane. Previously I'd been trying forming tubes with two wires on, figuring that the wires constitute a hard outer form to push against the hard inner form of the mandrel while forming the tube. Then I tried wires and string, so the string could cushion the tube while allowing pliers to crunch the tube, helping the forming. For these two, however, I skipped the wires entirely, using only string, which was how I learned originally. I found myself removing the wires later so I could flatten the formed tube anyway, so if I can avoid putting them on, it'll save a step.

Update (Fri): R6 is strong and bright, and could be interesting. The other two, R5 and G1, are more mellow, and I find myself tending to look for ways to brighten them. Taking wood out of the "hinge" seemed to help... which led to a rare feeling of success. I felt like McCoy in the Star Trek episode, Spock's Brain, where he has to reconnect Spock's brain to his body, with the help of some neural enhancement: It's so easy now. Just scrape the channels if it makes your lips tired, the hinge to get brighter, nuthin' to it.

Updates

I added a blog to my blog list: "I was doing all right", which is by another player who quit, and came back. Like me. Except he's been blogging his recovery for seven years, instead of seven weeks. Also he was more serious than I ever was, a jazz major in college, heading for the pros, before he stopped. I'm looking forward to reading some of what he's written.

I bought some lessons from Frank Morelli. No, not live in person, unfortunately, but a startup called MusicComm taped him and a few other Julliard faculty, doing their teaching. Basically, for a few dollars, I can sit in on a lesson in a world-class institution. It's really interesting. It's not that what he says is so different in detail from what you'd hear from your junior high band teacher ("Support the tone!"), but the realization that no, there aren't any secrets, not really. This is what the best music faculty has to say to the best music students in the country. The rest is talent and work, mostly work.

Playing wise, not much to say. I fooled around a bit with breathing. Since I'd had endurance problems, I wanted to try to discover an exercise that worked that. Long tones are good, but normally I find myself taking a brief break after playing one, just a few seconds, exhaling and inhaling, and recovering. This doesn't work if you have another phrase coming, and the piece is minutes long. You need to be able to just take a breath and keep on going. I ended up playing chromatic scales, bottom couple octaves, 8 beats on each note at 60, and two, three, or four notes per breath. I found myself getting lightheaded, and ended up reading up on things like hyperventilation, hypercapnia, and other fun respiration topics. Fascinating stuff, human physiology.

Why.

While I'm playing, people who used to play the bassoon will run into me, telling me they stopped because they had other things to do with their lives. Other people will give me this wistful look and tell me they miss making music. Someone once said to me they weren't good enough, and that they weren't going to be a professional so they thought they shouldn't waste their time.

It's always sad to hear about people letting music go because they think they aren't going to be good enough. To me, doing creative things with music doesn't have to be about being the virtuoso or the expert. It's something you have fun with that opens up your heart and your spirit, and you can share it with people one way or another.

I want people to give their spirit a chance to breathe, and do some of those things. While they may not make you money, they can make you happy, and you have to find some way in your life to squeeze those things in. It enriches your life.

(From this lovely interview with Toronto bassoonist Jeff Burke, via Josh Firer)

Here's Jeff, doing his live looping thing:

Welcome 2010

Played this morning for a bit, after more than a week off. I was thinking about playing while away, listening to some other operators on my iPod while sitting in airports (Judith LeClair, Five Sacred Trees; Dag Jensen and the Quadriga Bassoon Ensemble, Pictures at an Exhibition; Tamás Benkócs, various Vivaldi concertos), and thinking about 26, and trying to memorize it. But I wasn't playing, and playing is a physical skill. The muscles lose their tone, the fingers forget, and so on. It took awhile to find a reed that was working for me, and mostly I just played scales. But everything seemed to still work. All in all, not as bad as I was expecting, based on the last time I missed a few days.

My goals for 2010 are more or less the same as they were when I took up playing again: learn how to make reeds, so that I don't feel trapped; intonation; and tone. I'm hoping that a year will allow me to at least make a fair bit of progress in these areas, enough so I can start thinking about what I want to do with music, while being able to stand listening to myself play.