Does it matter which blade of the reed is up?

Today’s quick tip is an answer to the question: Does it matter which blade of the reed is up? 

The short answer is: Yes!  If you’re a longtime reader, you’ll know that I’m not happy with a short answer, so let’s get into it. 

In reed making, we use a slightly rounded cutting block to clip the tips of most reeds. 

Cutting block on my desk

The subtly rounded top of the cutting block means that the reed is almost always held at a slight angle, making one of the blades ever so slightly shorter than the other once clipped. (Sometimes I increase the angle of the reed when I clip it to make a more drastically shorter blade, depending on what the reed needs.) 

This is a normal clipping angle.

This is an angled clip - the reed is held at a higher angle to create a greater disparity between blade lengths.

Once clipped, the top blade, which was pushed farther forward than the bottom blade, is shorter. 

If you look carefully at the tip of the reed from the side, most handmade reeds will have a slightly shorter and slightly longer blade. 

Profile of a reed. The blade on the left side is slightly shorter and will be placed on the player's lower lip.

Play with the longer blade facing up and the shorter blade on your lower lip. 

A further detail you can look for to help differentiate between long and short blades of the reed is the thread overlap (the place where the reed thread crosses over itself). 

Close-up of the thread overlap. Ideally the overlap will occur on the flat part of the reed, not the side.

Most reedmakers clip their reeds with the thread overlap facing up, so the shortcut is to find the overlap and twist the reed so that side faces your lower lip. 

Some reedmakers don’t pay attention to where the thread overlaps, so you may find that it’s on the side of your reed rather than on the flat. In that case, look at the tip of the reed sideways to find the shorter blade. 

Hopefully the pictures help, but let me know if you have any questions!

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