Preparing Saxophone Reeds

Video Transcript

"Alright, I am going to tell you now how to prepare a reed to play. It is important to get the reed wet, to get a good vibration when you are blowing into the saxophone. Thinking again about a reed in a pond. The pores in this thing carry water from the bottom to the top of the reed. If you look at it from the back you can almost see the pores. The best way for me to start preparing my reed is to put the back end in my mouth. It is going to pull the spit from my mouth through the reed actually for me, it is just like magic, the whole thing could be wet pretty soon so I put it in my mouth, get it nice and wet, and probably spend a little more time on it in real life, turn it around and get the front end wet, like so. Without getting your reed wet, it actually does not vibrate as well and it causes a lot of squeaking and stuff. You should spend about two or three minutes preparing your reed for the first time when you are using it for the day. Wooden reeds are the ones that you will need to get wet. Synthetic reeds do not need to be wet but you lose this natural feel in the reed in my opinion. Make sure that you spend some time preparing your reed before you play."