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	<title>MKL Reeds &#187; Reed Library</title>
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		<title>Evaluating Your Reeds</title>
		<link>http://www.mklreeds.com/2009/08/evaluating-your-reeds/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mklreeds.com/2009/08/evaluating-your-reeds/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:59:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maryn</dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Reed Library]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Evaluating Your Reeds
No matter how you do your initial scrapes, every reed goes through a period of evaluation and refining scrapes based on crow, appearance, and overall characteristics.
Hopefully, you have a gouge and shape that suit your
individual needs and work well together, you&#39;ve got a well formed blank, and you&#39;ve started to form the overall [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Evaluating Your Reeds</strong></p>
<p>No matter how you do your initial scrapes, every reed goes through a period of evaluation and refining scrapes based on <strong>crow</strong>, <strong>appearance</strong>, and <strong>overall characteristics</strong>.</p>
<p>Hopefully, you have a gouge and shape that suit your<br />
individual needs and work well together, you&#39;ve got a well formed blank, and you&#39;ve started to form the overall slope of the reed.  Now, as you take the reed down and start defining the sections of the reed, you will start the evaluation process.  </p>
<p>While evaluating the reed, you will be aiming for a balance between all the components of the reed. </p>
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<strong>A Word About Balance</strong><br />
<br />
Every reedmaker would agree that you need balance in a reed, no matter how you scrape or what type of reed you are making.  Both sides of each blade <strong>must be symmetrically scraped.</strong><br />
The 2 blades must also have the same amount of wood taken from the same places to help make the reed balanced.
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<p>
When you try your reeds while making them, really <strong>PLAY</strong> them.  Play some music, see how they work in a <em>real</em> musical situation.  Try doing things that reeds can often inhibit, such as in-tuned octaves, low note attacks, and soft downward slurs.  It is surprising how a reed you thought felt pretty good for a few warm-up notes can be impossible to actually PLAY.  Finding this out in your studio is far less painful than finding out 5 minutes into<br />
a rehearsal, so put your reeds to the test before you go out in public.</p>
<p><strong>A final thought on reed evaluation:</strong></p>
<p>Don&#39;t sacrifice your comfort and ability to play the oboe for a reed you<br />
think sounds good&quot;but is difficult to play.  If you have to struggle to<br />
get the reed to work, you won&#39;t be able to play music.</p>
<p>Your reed should allow you to <strong>play</strong>.  It should be on your side and not limit your playing.  At the same time, you need to <strong>play the reed</strong>.   Match its resistance.  You need to be <em>able</em> to play your reed.  It may <em>sound</em> good to you,<br />
but it won&#39;t to everybody else if you aren&#39;t comfortable playing it.</p>
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