Clarinet Teacher Reacts: Légère European Cut

[@anthonybacevice8077]

European cut is shorter. I, too, thought it is brighter. The 3.75 is closer to the V12 3.5. In two years, I’ve never had a bad one. They do last. One or two should be all you need.

[@CodedNotes]

I've been meaning to do a follow up blog post about my Légère experience. I took them up on the offer of an exchange (where they send you a different size and you don't have to return your current one), and got a 3.75. It's definitely better for myself, but because it's still quite bright, I find my embouchure has to do a lot of work to control the tone. It's definitely a decent practice reed, and likely really good for a raucous outdoor gig. I should probably try a 4 (I would feel bad if I did yet another exchange though, so haven't), just to see where the limit is. One of the interesting things I found is it's very difficult to sustain high notes. Pull the dynamic right back on a high E, for example, and a cane reed keeps on buzzing, but unless you squeeze the heck out of the Légère, the vibration cuts out.

[@hughwong144]

Kia ora. I just realised you are from New Zealand! Great video!

[@CodedNotes]

Thanks. Mentioning KBB Albany as my local music store certainly narrows it down a bit :)

[@kentreuber8026]

The European cut is a little wider than other clarinet reeds. It’s wide enough for soprano saxophone, where it also works well.

[@CodedNotes]

I'll admit I got a bit of surprise. I'd never seen a clarinet reed like that before.

[@Flowerbranche]

@@CodedNotes How would it fit on a Vandoren B40 mouthpiece? Also, does it matter what ligature you use? I've just tried a synthetic reed from Yamaha, and noticed it's a bit thicker so it's harder to get my ligature to fit around it.

[@CodedNotes]

@@Flowerbranche That's a really good question. I don't have a B40, but I have a B45 and the European cut seems a tad wide for it (I'm not sure how similar a B40 and B45 are to each other). The French cut, however, seems a better fit for the B45 so you may want to look into that too, and they sound quite good too. I haven't tried playing either with B45 though (for some reason) so I only have my M30 Lyre to compare against. The ligature isn't going to influence things much.

[@Flowerbranche]

@@CodedNotes B40 is basically the same as B45, just a bit "wider tip rail" it says. Is that the mouthpiece you used in the video?

[@CodedNotes]

@@Flowerbranche I used an M30 Lyre in the video. I just double checked, and the European Cut overhangs rails of the B45 quite a bit and doesn't look a good fit. The French Cut is similar to a Vandoren V12 in dimensions and fits quite well. If you had a choice between the two, I'd opt for the French Cut given your B40. I've never seen one, but I'm guessing the wider tip rail maintains the actual distance between the outer edges. I tried taking a photo for you, but it wouldn't have helped much.

[@whoitisnot]

Do you adjust your cane reeds? That's where the magic is.

[@CodedNotes]

Once upon a time I tried sanding, filing, soaking, even sucking them from the solid end in order to supposedly help seal the reed better. I gave up in the end because it didn't seem to help much. The most I do these days is lift a "soft" reed a little higher to help add more resistance. Maybe one day I'll watch a view videos and try it out on some of dud reeds. I see the Better Sax guy swears by the Reed Geek tools.

[@whoitisnot]

@@CodedNotes That's a shame. I've routinely taught students as young as 7th grade to make reeds significantly better with just a couple of minutes work. It's a thing worth learning. I used to just fix younger students' reeds for them, but the pandemic challenged me to figure out how to get them to be able to do it for themselves. I put together kits of very simple tools at a cost of about $20 US and taught the class over Zoom.

[@ungratefulloser8532]

can you play no 33 from 50 classical studies by baermann

[@CodedNotes]

Gosh, that one is going to require a bit of practice if I'm to avoid butchering it. I should be able to put something together though.

[@CodedNotes]

I finally did it! I hope this wasn't something you needed in a hurry :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnKWoZSba7OnjbM I was a bit hit and miss, but hopefully the video is helpful. It at least gives you a different interpretation and therefore some more ideas on how to approach it.

[@TonyAguirreJazz]

I tried them on my Tenor and hated them - 40 year player