Reed (mouthpiece)

A reed (or lamella) is a thin strip of material that vibrates to produce a sound on a musical instrument. Most woodwind instrument reeds are made from Arundo donax ("Giant cane") or synthetic material. Tuned reeds (as in harmonicas and accordions) are made of metal or synthetics. Musical instruments are classified according to the type and number of reeds. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in an uncapped double reed instrument (such as the oboe and bassoon), there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Single reeds are used on the mouthpieces of clarinets and saxophones. The back of the reed is flat and is placed against the mouthpiece. These reeds are roughly rectangular in shape and taper towards the thin tip, which is rounded to match the curve of the mouthpiece tip. All single reeds are shaped similarly but vary in size to fit each instrument's mouthpiece. Reeds designed for the same instrument look roughly identical, but vary in thickness ("hardness" or "strength"). Hardness is generally measured on a scale of 1 through 5 from softest to hardest. This is not a standardized scale and reed strengths vary by manufacturer. The thickness of the tip and heel and the profile in between affect the sound and playability. Pieces of cane of different density or stiffness, even if cut with the same profile, will respond differently due to those differences. The cane used to make reeds for single-reed instruments is grown in the southern coastal regions of France and Spain and, in the last 30 years, in the Cuyo area of Argentina. After the cane is cut it is placed in direct sunlight for about a month to dry. The cane is rotated regularly to ensure even and complete drying. Once dry, the cane is stored in a warehouse.

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Related concepts (15)

Wind instrument

A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air. In the case of some wind instruments, sound is produced by blowing through a reed; others require buzzing into a metal mouthpiece, while yet others require the player to blow into a hole at an edge, which splits the air column and creates the sound.

Reed (mouthpiece)

Aerophone

An aerophone (ˈɛəroʊfoʊn) is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound (or idiophones). According to Sachs, Aerophones or 'air instruments' include what are usually called 'wind instruments,' with the addition of a few instruments with a different acoustical principle called 'free aerophones.