Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Pic of the day: The mark of Cane


Reeds are the bane of a woodwind player's existence. We need them. We hate them, because there are no good ones. And when they die, we don't know what to do with them. My own grave of dead reeds includes some for soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones, clarinet, and bass clarinet. There might also be a contra-alto reed in there, but I'm not digging to find it. Eventually, they'll become a sculpture or something...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Curious... why not just throw them out? Do they harm the environment or something?

Leanne Powers said...

I'm not sure I know why I don't throw them out. Often I do. Sometimes, I soak a dying reed and then flatten it on glass, hoping it'll play again in the future (they're kind of expensive). A lot of the ones in the box sat on a table for a while in that state of hopefulness, and when I got tired of seeing them there I tossed them into the box and have been adding to it ever since. They're useful as wood shims or glue spreaders, so until the box fills up or they start annoying me, I'll probably just leave them in there.

And finally, I'm a musician, and that comes with its own set of eccentricities. Thus--invoking the ar-TEEST clause here--if I do something weird, it's perfectly legitimate.

Make sense?