Used Musical Instruments

What clarinet reed size should i get?

Q: I play 1st Bb clarinet in my high school's wind ensemble
Ive been using 2 1/2 vandoren
I want to get a thicker size of vandoren reeds but i dont know which
We usually play songs rated 4 or 5 in difficulty but sometimes 6s

thanks

A: There's this myth that says the better you play the harder your reed should be - it's a complete myth.

Here's the real deal: Your sound comes from a combination of your embouchure, your mouthpiece, your ligature, and your reed. All of these have to mesh in order to get the best possible tone. You'll notice that only one of those considerations has anything to do with you personally - the rest is your gear.

On your mouthpiece there is a consideration called tip opening. It's all about how wide (or not) the gap is between the reed and the mouthpiece. The wider that opening is, the softer we need the reed to be - the narrower it is, the harder we need a reed to be.

Then, your ligature holds that reed onto the mouthpiece. Some ligatures hold it tightly and others loosely.

It's the mouthpiece/ligature combination that is incredibly important. Unfortunately, most band directors aren't clarinetists and they haven't heard all of this. All they know is what they learned in methods class when they had to learn clarinet and that was "use a #2 or 2.5 reed"

So, you ask, which do you need? Glad you asked. It depends. ☺

A close tip with a hard reed will give you a very deep and dark tone like you'd expect in old orchestra music. But, it won't answer as quickly and will waste your lips out if you don't practice hours per day.

A wide tip with a really soft reed (1 or 1.5) will give you that jazzy/dixieland sound of the 1930's but it answers too easy and tends to squeek if you aren't careful. It's easiest on your lip muscles though and that's why a lot of doublers (sax and flute players) go that route.

We can adjust that reed tension with the ligature too. That's why there are ligatures out there for you to buy (like Rovner and Vandoren) instead of using that aluminum thing that came with your clarinet.

So try some mouthpieces. Stop by you local music store and see if they stock a range of clarinet mouthpieces and ligatures. Plan to spend a few hours there and take some reeds of different size.

Assuming you play in a school concert band - maybe start with a Vandoren B45 (medium open) with a V12 #3 reed and a Klassic ligature. (all Vandoren products) That should probably give you a nice wooden tone with a relative quick response.

Don't just change the reed strength alone and expect an significant difference - that's not how the setup works.

Best bet though - if you can find a professional clarinet teacher to help you through this process, it's very worth the time and cost.