reeds reeds reeds!

For the past year I've been playing on synthetic reeds with mixed success. I was busy with school and breaking in reeds and treating them well started cutting into my limited practice time, so in the end convenience (and synthetics) won. Now that my school schedule has eased off I have decided to get back into cane. But before I make an order I am going to work my way through my current collection of cane reeds.

For quite awhile V16s were my go-to reeds on soprano (and alto before that) but along the way I would pick newly released cuts or reeds I hadn't tried. If they worked, I played them. If not, I would do my best to make them work for me or they might end up in the shoe box.

Currently in the box are reeds from: Rigotti, Marca (Superieure/Jazz), Roberto's, Vandoren (Java/Traditional/ZZ/V12/V16 and a couple of Java Red), Rico (Select Jazz and a few Reserve), Hemke, Alexander (Superial/Classique/NY and a few D.Cs too) and probably a few others I'll discover along the way.... perhaps a Ponzol or Gonzalez here and there.

I am confident of getting something useful out of any reeds that are too hard, although I'm sure that my reed knife skills will be a bit rusty and as a result a few reeds will be sacrificed. On the other hand, I have never had much luck clipping reeds that are too soft.... I'm not even sure I have a soprano reed clipper. My plan is to start with the open boxes first, probably Rico Select Jazz (a soprano reed I've never had any luck with) or Java Red or V12 as I only have a few of them left. Pre-synthetic, I had great success with Rigotti and Marca (and I wouldn't mind trying their new "American Vintage" cut) but with a little luck I won't have to buy reeds for a while.