Hey I've been having problems with my sound being way too "airy".
I'm almost completely convinced it's my reed. It's a Fox reed (I don't know the thickness of it, bare with me) and I've tried a Lesher reed and they both seem to have their own issues. I can reach high notes very easily on my Fox reed, while I cannot hit lower notes with the same ease. The opposite is true with the Lesher.
Anyone have any personal preferences on their reeds/thickness that I could try? Thanks!
Very few reeds are perfect from top to bottom, that's why we have more than one reed at the same time to suit different pieces.
What do you mean by airy? If you can hear air escaping then there is a gap between the two blades that needs to be closed. If the sound isn't sonorous or mellow enough then it's probably too open or too hard/thick.
Use pliers at the wires to adjust the opening. I prefer my reeds to be quite closed but my teacher prefers hers more open.
Use reed knife etc to scrape the reed to a better thickness (making it easier to vibrate). Especially scrape the edges which need to be the same thickness on each side and are often too thick on shopbought reeds. Avoid scraping from the heart of the reed.
If it's too thin then the tone will be nasal and nasty - unless you like it like that!
You should scrape the channels for better vibration. The channels are on either side of the spine of the reed. To know what the reed's weaknesses are (higher register, lower register) you should crow the reed and the higher the crow the better it will sound in the high octave and the same for low. You should try to get it right in the middle, then you'll know that both registers are almost equal.