Are you sick of messing around with cane saxophone reeds and the lack of consistency and longevity?
We’re going to have a look why you should pickle your sax reeds – and my two top tips for getting the most out of your cane reeds.
So let’s get into it.
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Why pickle your sax reeds
Now when you want to get into some good saxophone practice, the last thing you want to be doing is messing around with inconsistent reeds.
And I think this is one of the main reasons why a lot of people switch to synthetic reeds. They’ve come on a lot in the last10 or 15 years. I remember the first ones were a bit like playing old drain pipes, but these days they’re very close to cane.But for me, and maybe for some of you, a synthetic reed is still not quite the same as playing a good cane reed.
However, cane reeds can be incredibly inconsistent. They often take a lot of maintenance, and sometimes they just don’t last for very long.
So, let’s talk about some ways we can get our cane reeds to behave a bit more like synthetic reeds. I mean this from the point of view of the way they play, their consistency, and their longevity.
Now, we’ve all had problems with cane reeds. And some people go down the route of cutting and shaving and messing around with those reeds.
To me, that seems like a step too far. I want to be spending that time practicing or getting to grips with the instrument.
I don’t want to spend time messing around with the reed. And also, it takes a lot of skill to do that right. You can end up wrecking more reeds than you fix. Ultimately this isn’t something I could do midway through a gig either.
I’ve been a professional saxophonist for over 30 years. And there’s nothing worse than when that gig’s coming up, something goes wrong with the reed. Maybe it even happens on the gig – and you’ve got to start that process all over again.
Finding a solution
About 15 years ago, I got so frustrated with cane reeds. And there were no synthetic alternatives around at that point.
I decided to do a series of experiments, just to see if I could find a way of making them a bit more consistent and also just trying to get a bit more longevity out of those good ones.
So, I tried keeping them submerged in water. I tried green tea – all sorts of things.
After many searches on the internet, just seeing what everyone had tried out and what people recommended, I tried them all with not a lot of success.
But that led me on to yet another forum, where they were talking about keeping the reed in Listerine.
I thought this was interesting. Now, in the U.S., Listerine has alcohol in it. And I thought, well, that’s a good idea – alcohol. I had not tried that, and I just happened to have a bottle of vodka in the cupboard.
So I decided to try soaking the reeds in vodka, and I’m still doing that to this day.
And I’m going to explain to you why I think it works so well – and the kind of process I go through to prepare my reeds for this kind of treatment.
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The Vodka Reed Method
Now you may have seen some other videos of people trying out soaking their reeds in vodka, and they weren’t too successful. But they were doing it wrong.
So, the key thing is, we’re going to pickle your sax reeds for life. It’s not a case of just putting it in some vodka, leaving it for five minutes, and then suddenly it’s a miracle cure and the reed is the perfect reed.
No, you’ve got to keep it in there forever. It lives in the vodka.
The Process
So, I’m going to talk through my process for how to pickle your sax reeds.
Flatten the Reed
So, the first thing I do is use a tool. And I use the ReedGeek. But you can also use the glass plates or some very light sandpaper. This is to make sure that while the reed is dry, that the base of the reed is completely flat.
This means, when the reed goes onto your mouthpiece, it creates a good seal.
Now, it turns out this is the problem with a lot of cane reeds. They’re just not flat, and that seal is not being created.
So, that’s the first thing I do is I use the Reed Geek tool, which is great for this. I take the reed, and from midway down, I just very lightly hold the weight of the tool on it, on the sharp edge, and I rub it down several times.
And what you’ll find is you get a little bit of wood sediment on there. Do it again, you’ll get even less. Do it again, and eventually, there’ll be barely anything there. And at least you know that that part of the reed is now flat, and ready to put in the vodka.
Mark the Reed
So the next thing I do is to mark the reed at the stock end. Now, I’ve tried a few different pens with this. You’re about to put it in liquid, and you don’t want it running everywhere. And the only pen I’ve found that doesn’t do that and run is a Sharpie.
I’ve tried lots of other brands, and I’m not sponsored by Sharpie, but Sharpie seems to be the only type of pen that doesn’t run. And I put a little marking on there. It could be a shape, or just a number, or something like that. before I put it in the vodka.
Put the reed in the vodka tip down
Now, I always put my reeds in the vodka with the tip downwards.
Vodka is thicker than water. And you’ll see, even when you pop the reed in, that it kind of slows down as it reaches the bottom.
The reason I put reed into the vodka tip down i:
- I’ve never caused any damage to a reed by doing this
- when you take it out, you don’t want to be grabbing the tip of the reed.
The right container
Now, it’s really important to find a good container. This is almost is the hardest part of this process.
You need a good airtight container so that the vodka doesn’t drip out when you fasten it.
Food-grade plastic is ideal. Glass might not be a great idea because you will be carrying this in your sax case. We don’t want to smash glass in our case.
I find pill bottles or vitamin tablet bottles are quite good for this. And they come in lots of different sizes depending on how many reeds you want to keep in there. Maybe you play a baritone with a longer reed or maybe a soprano with a shorter reed. So you can find a container that is the right size for you.
I use this vitamin container. And you can see around it I’ve just put a big O ring or elastic band to hold a pair of tweezers. This helps me very delicately pull the reed out of the vodka when I need to, rather than dipping my fingers in and fiddling about.
Soak reed for 48 hours
Now before playing any of the reeds that I put in the vodka, I leave them there. That’s not just for five minutes, as has been tested on other channels.
But I leave them in there for a good 48 hours before I even try playing them. I want them to almost infuse the reed with that vodka and get it right into the heart of the reed. I want the reed to be submerged and soaking it all up.
I also try to have at least five reeds in there if I can. And it’s a great idea is to try and rotate them. This is exactly why I mark them with that sharpie, so I know where I’m up to, and I can rotate around those reeds.
You may not want to do that, you may just have a favourite, in which case at least if you’ve marked them you know which one that is. Then you can just get it out efficiently and get on with your practice.
And that’s it. That’s all you have to do to pickle your sax reeds.
Benefits of pickling your sax reeds
Now, let’s talk about the benefits that I’ve found from doing this.
If you’ve ever done a bit of DIY and you’ve started with some untreated wood that you need to paint, you may have noticed is when you start painting it, it sucks in that paint. And it’s almost like you’ve not painted it.
#1 Seals the pores
So you need to seal the pores of the wood. And the way you do that is you use alcohol.
Now you’ll see people that are really into kind of using tools with the reeds and reed rushes and things like that, and that’s what they’re trying to do.
They try to get some moisture in the reed, generally by playing with it or giving it a brief soak in water. And then they use something like a reed rush to try to close the pores on the reed and trap it in the inside of the reed, so it’s nice and malleable for playing.
The vodka does this for us. It’s already infused with vodka and it’s also self-sealing. The vodka is closing those pores on that reed. So that’s the first benefit to this method of pickling your sax reeds.
#2 Hygienic
Now the next thing is really useful. It’s hygiene. This is a hygienic way to store your reeds.
Because any bacteria that’s on that reed, from a surface you placed it on, or from your mouth, will be won’t be there once it’s been soaked in vodka for a little while. So it’s a hygienic way of treating your reeds.
#3 Longevity
Cane reeds deteriorate over time and become softer, to the point where they’re just not the same reed and we don’t want to play them anymore. One of the reasons for this is the enzymes in our saliva which are there to break down food. When you play your saxophone, there’s saliva involved. And those enzymes end up on your reed.
So when you take it off your reed and you put it in your case, they continue to eat away at the reed. They break down the wood fibres. And this is why our reeds get softer and softer over time. And, what’s great about the vodka, once again, is it kills those enzymes.
I don’t play a strong reed – I play a 2 reed with a 7* Ottolink mouthpiece on tenor.
But I’ve had reeds that have lasted me well over three years. And there’s been little to no change in the strength of that reed over time. They may have got a little bit softer, but that’s just general friction and wear. But they didn’t soften significantly enough for me to want to change the reed.
Since I’ve been keeping my reeds in vodka, the only time I’ve ever how to get rid of one of these reeds is when I’ve broken it myself.
I’ve caught it on a jumper or stabbed it into a wall and I’ve damaged the reed. I’ve never actually ended up with one of these reeds where it’s not been good enough to play anymore. And this is interesting. So, if I hadn’t damaged these reeds, would they have lasted even longer?
And this is great because that’s even longer than the synthetic reeds, and they just last me for a long time and I do a lot of playing daily.
How to dry your reed
When I want to take the reed out ready to play, I use my tweezers to get out the reed from the pot.
I use a lint-free cloth and I wipe down the stock flat end of the reed that’s going to go against the mouthpiece.
But because it’s alcohol, even if you just hold it for 30 seconds, it will evaporate off the reed. And you’re left with a reed that feels like a normal cane reed that’s been started from dry, that you’ve just played for about 30 minutes. It’s that kind of moisture that’s left. But on the outside, it looks quite dry.
So if you want to speed that process up, no problem. Just give it a little gentle dry, particularly at the stock end where it’s going against the mouthpiece. Then stick it straight on and you’re good to go.
Alternatives to vodka
Now, I’ve talked about how to pickle your sax reeds in vodka. But you can use other types of alcohol as well. I’ve had plenty of students and professionals that use gin, some that use brandy, some that use whiskey.
The one thing to be aware of is you don’t want alcohol that’s got a lot of sugar in it. Sugar is not very good for the cane. So you just want something with a high alcohol content that’s not too sugary.
Disadvantages to pickling your sax reeds
So are there any downsides to keeping your reeds in vodka?
Not particularly. It’s a little bit more fiddly. It takes a little bit more effort when you first set up to get the reed out of the vodka and give it a dry But I think it’s completely worth it to you.
It saves you time in the long run. And the other thing that I would say with this is, once you’ve committed that reed to vodka, it needs to stay in the vodka.
So, if you like leaving the reed on your mouthpiece in between practice sessions, (which I wouldn’t advise) then this probably won’t work out very well for you. That’s because when the reed fully dries out, and it’s not been played for maybe half an hour, it goes very dry and brittle and you’ll get a lot of warping.
Now it’s not the end of the world if you do this by mistake now and again. Just put it back in the vodka, leave it for 48 hours, and it’ll be back as good as new.
And even if I’m on a gig, let’s say I’m doing two 45-minute sets and we’ve got a short half an hour break, I always put my reed back in the vodka for the break. That way it stays nice and supple and ready to play.
What you need to pickle your reeds
Here’s what you need to store your reeds in alcohol in this way.
- a good container to keep our reeds in
- a bottle of Vodka, gin, brandy, or whiskey
- An elastic band around it to hold your tweezers on the container
- a pair of tweezers to help you get those reeds out.
- A lint free cloth
- A sealy plastic bag.
Make sure you get a vessel that you can fill up to the top, so the reed is completely submerged. If you’ve got half of the reed in air and half of it in liquid, it might bend because they’re two different kinds of atmospheres. And one will be dry and one will be wet.
So I always try and make sure my reeds are completely submerged in the bottle. And that’s important because if you put the bottle in your sax case on its side, some reeds may end up out of the liquid completely.
I use a lint-free cloth to wipe down the reed when I take it out of the liquid. And I tend to just keep it all in a sealed plastic bag. And I wrap them up and I stick them in my sax case.
So when I get to the gig and get out the reed, it’s ready to play straight away, exactly the same as last time I played it. And it’s good to go.
Bonus Resources inside Sax School PRO
So once again, if you want to grab that little funky practice backing track that I’ve been using during this video, then head over to Sax School. We’ve got a 14 day free trial available now. Also with this video, you’ll find that I’ve made a list of all the things that I use for this vodka reed method, and you can download that too.
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