How to Buy & Attach a Clarinet Reed

Video Transcript

Hi! My name is Leslie Burnick and today I’m going to talk about what to do with the clarinet reed and how to purchase them and how to also put it on the clarinet. I am speaking on behalf of expertvillage.com. When you get the reeds I do recommend as a beginner that you start with about a number two and a half. Any music store will be able to tell you what types of reeds… you do not have to get fancy expensive reeds. Any reed will do, just to warn you, you will tend to break them a lot as a beginner. Just because you are used to how to deal with it. You are not going to be used to where the end of the clarinet is when you are carrying it around so just be prepared. Reeds cost anywhere from 1-$2 depending per reed. So it is rather expensive but overtime you will improve and you would not tend to break them as much. Very important is the little piece here, this is called the ligature. And the ligature is what holds the reed on. So if you get the reed all set on the mouthpiece like such and then you go to put the ligature on you are very likely to break the tip of the reed, I do not know if you are able to see but it’s a very, very thin piece of wood. So the best thing to do is to put the ligature on. Now, while you are assembling the clarinet the whole time you should have the reed in your mouth. You just, you want to get it wet because then it will play properly. If it is totally dry it is just not going to play. So you do want to wet it, you do not have to overly soak it and certainly when it is in your mouth you do not want to chew on it because you will break it. So you get the reed wet, again you are just going to lift the ligature up slightly, slide the reed in. Most mouthpieces, I’m not sure if you are going to be able to see, have a line, have lines on the top and bottom, which shows you approximately where to put the ligature. So if you are going to slide the ligature on, without the reed you are not going to get any sound on the clarinet, so it is very important that you have a decent reed and that you put it on correctly, so again the ligature is within the lines of the mouthpiece, you want to have it just about even with the tip of the mouthpiece, too low and it is going to be difficult to play, too high and it is going to be difficult to play. So you want it just about even. And then you simply tighten the screws on the ligature, just like that.

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