#reedmaking is a big deal okay

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i don't think i've made a reed i liked in like. three years. so i keep trying to play everything on the one same reed i did actually like, and even though it's kind of worked so far bc i am just not playing that much, it's obviously uh, not sustainable, since reeds are made of organic material that breaks down as you use it, right, so it's certainly past its peak and sometime soon will inevitably fail completely and i truly don't know what i will do when that happens :)

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every time i'm prepping for an outdoor gig i try using the legere reeds, and every time i decide to just suck it up and deal with whatever my normal reeds throw at me, because the legere just don't have the response or the strength i need. even on the harder one, the open E sinks and the high range is strained and they just lack a sweetness you get from real arundo donax. and it's a damn shame that i can't use them for their main purpose, especially since they were so goddamn expensive

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lol it turns out that when the students in reed class have taken physics before, they get much more excited about the fulcrum explanation for beveling and wire function

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when i was testing all the different cane types barton offers, i color coded the thread as well as wrote two-letter abbreviations on the tube

but now it's however long later and the pen has mostly worn away and i no longer remember which thread was which and not only was it a wasted experiment, i also don't know what cane the reeds i liked were made from and i'm so annoyed with myself about it

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always a surprise to open an altoids tin from my desk drawer and find actual altoids inside, instead of reeds

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reminder to myself that sharpening my knife is not difficult and takes like five minutes, including taking out all the stuff and wiping away the oil afterward, and is always faster, easier, safer, and less annoying than working with a dull blade

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feeling very weird about finishing some of the spools of reed thread that i've had for ~15 years, especially because the company that made them hasn't been around for probably ten years

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will it ever stop being awkward to introduce myself to oboists in the reed room on campus?

me: oh, i'm clearing out as soon as i finish repacking my bag, if you want to use this workspace.

them: okay. wait, who are you?

me: right, i'm sigma, i teach the bassoon reedmaking class, i'm not a strange person in your reed room. well, i am a strange person in your reed room, but also, i work here

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a few years ago i had a kitchen mishap and took a slice off the very tip of my thumb -- which was, of course, unguarded bc i keep my nails musician-short, so the fingertip itself extends a couple millimeters past the nail

it has since healed, obviously, and it wasn't in a place that affected my playing at all. HOWEVER. there is still a pad of scar tissue where the cut was, and the nerves there are still over-sensitive to pressure. and it's exactly where i brace my knife when i'm scraping a reed. and it gets fucking sore

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i am become An Old, Destroyer of Internet Phenomena

me: sometimes i think about reedmaking asmr videos

my students: *horrified*

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@athoroughlycommonpotato replied to your chat “i am become An Old, Destroyer of Internet Phenomena”

Your students are cowards there's so many good sounds in reedmaking!

right ????  filing and scraping and sanding!  splitting the cane, after the initial thwack on the table to get it started; the pre-gouger makes an amazing sound as you crank the cane through; the gouger and the profiler are the only things that i’d probably leave out as too loud and bangy.  cowards, indeed!

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so i’m looking at barton cane for teaching reasons but i’m also teetering on the edge of a total mental shutdown because there are so many options in different combinations and the damned completionist in me wants to try them all

because obviously i want to have an informed opinion when i’m sourcing cane for reed class (which i may or may not be asked back to teach, god knows when i’ll find out)

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i’m trying to source reedmaking equipment for my students and y’all i am actually angry at miller’s page.  it’s so web 1.0, it’s ugly and difficult to navigate, and i can admit that christlieb’s is almost as bad but at least they didn’t choose comic fucking sans for all their text.  jesus flippity flopping christ.

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how tf did j—- and c——— teach forming to a bunch of hs and college bassoonists without things devolving into crude innuendo? because the freshmen boys in my reed class took it there immediately

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cutting the tip of your reed crooked is a hell from which there is no escape

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ugh remind me to regrind my knife sometime when it isn’t midnight