How to Choose Saxophone Reeds

In today's lesson we are going to discuss how to choose saxophone reeds. This initial post will be mostly geared toward the beginner player, but you experts out there might find this useful as well. Let's begin.

As we all know, saxophone reeds are quite expensive. In addition, they are quite inconsistent in quality unless purchasing a synthetic reed. Most reeds are made from natural products which lead to large quality differences. These differences even exist between reeds of the same brand and style. In addition, most manufactures don't implement strict quality control procedures to ensure a constant product. In defense of the manufactures - we can't expect them to play each reed before shipping! However, this can be problematic for players of all skill levels. How do we solve this? Sometimes we cannot. Some stores will not allow you to sift through the reeds to find the cream of the crop. In this situation, you buy a few and hope for the best. In other cases, the store will let you look through the boxes to find a good reed. Most high end shops will allow you to perform a thorough inspection. Here is how we do it:

Let's first look at it. Hold the saxophone reed up to the light and look for any cracks, chips, or holes. Discard any that have those qualities. Look for discoloration in the wood grain. If you see discoloration, and the wood grain is not uniform, then select a different reed. Ensure that the wood grain is a consistent width, and not too coarse. You want the reed to look as uniform as possible. Inspect the flatness, and look for imperfections. A slight curvature is okay, but it should be limited.

Now, lets check the stiffness. If the store will let you, try gently flexing the reed. You don't want to break it, so be careful! A good reed should be stiff. If the reed feels loose (this will come with experience), then select another. A loose reed may be out of balance, so it is important to choose a stiff reed to eliminate this potential problem.

If you perform the procedure above, you'll greatly increase your chances of finding quality saxophone reeds. Now, to be fair, it is not always possible to pick out a bad reed by looking at it. It's also not possible to try out the reed before purchase. Therefore, I suggesting buying a few reeds at a time in case one doesn't work out, or breaks soon after purchase.

Good luck!