so how do those plastic clarinetreeds work?? u can answer if you tried a sax one too....
I've used them in both saxophone and clarinet. They're not perfect but very useful if you're in a band and are going to be playing with breaks in between- you don't have to keep them wet. I don't think the sound is bad myself, but I'm no expert- they're certainly better than a bad wooden reed. They're worth buying if only for emergencies.
tricky issue. seek at bing and yahoo. it could actually help!
The original purpose for the plastic reed for all woodwinds was in marching. Wood reeds have to be kept wet and remain that way to properly vibrate. The plastic vibrate well without as much moisture. The big disadvantage is in quality tone production and the high to low jumps where the plastic does not follow vibrational resonance like well cut wood reeds do. A good player can hear the difference a mile away. My personal suggestion is, use them for marching and store them when playing indoors.
Plastic reeds are only suitable for marching band....other than that, the tone quality produced by them is horrible. They work similarly to cane reeds.
They work exactly like a wooden reed---with vibration. However, the sound quality, intonation, pitch, etc. is extremely inferior to a wooden reed. The only time I used a plastic reed was when my wooden one broke at a marching competition and that is all my friend had. Plastic is handy for marching season because they are less likely to chip, etc., but they are NOT for concert band/symphony use. ever.
