We get a lot of questions about clarinet and saxophone reeds (and a few questions about oboe and bassoon reeds!) Our former clarinet teacher, Rob, wrote this little guide to help us undertand the basics of how to choose reeds. We hope you'll find it useful as well!

Reeds: What You Need to Know

Reeds are made of a member of the grass family, Arundo Donax, making them very fragile and susceptible to the elements.  Reeds typically last the professional one or two weeks, and students around three to four weeks (assuming they don’t get chipped or get moldy).

Ah, the Fourth of July. Fireworks, crowds at the Mall, parades in 100 degree weather, hot dogs, sunburns...and a ton of music. It's one of the most musical major holidays - parades and marching bands are staples of our celebrations, as is enthusiastically singing patriotic songs with half-remembered lyrics. Here's a handful books of patriotic or American that will help you celebrate America's birthday in style, all with a local connection to Washington DC!

The Greatest American Songbook

This one's pretty no-frills. It's just a great collection of all the most famous patriotic songs, including all of the armed forces songs. The piano arrangements are reasonably simple, and the book also gives chords and a separate vocal line. This is a great book for a sing-along celebration.

Local connection: Includes excellent piano transcriptions of several of the most famous marches by John Philip Sousa, who was born on G St. SE in 1854, conducted the DC-based Marine Band, and is buried in the Congressional Cemetary.

Last week's post talked about formats in pop music, so this week I'm moving on to classical music. Here's a quick guide to the different formats you're most likely to encounter when buying classical scores.

Full score

This is the most complete musical format that you can buy. A full score includes all the notes for every instrument or voice part involved in a given piece of music, written out in score order (winds, brass, keyboard/percussion/voices, and finally, strings. All instruments in a section are listed by their range in descending order: piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and so on.) Instruments are frequently listed by their German or Italian names, and often by abbreviations of these foreign names. A basic familiarity with these terms will help immensely when reading a full score. Transposing instruments are shown in their playing keys, which is why you'll see the clarinets, horns, and sax parts written in a totally different key than everyone else.