Can someone tell me more about the diff sizes and brands of reedds and what is best for what in general?

There are many types of reeds, and depending on the style you play as well as the mouthpiece will decide what type of reeds you want. Most beginners will begin with rico reeds. They usually start with a 2 or 2 1/2. The higher the number, the thicker the reed. Numbers can range from 1 to 5. Some reeds use words such as soft, medium-soft etc.

A step up from ricos would be rico royals. I personally play on Hemke Premium reeds. They are very consistant from reed to reed. They are not as durable as some reeds, but they are playable out of the box.

Many people swear by vandorens, but they are not very consistant. There are also reeds cut for jazz playing. Really your mouthpiece set up will help decide your reeds.

Many people shave their reeds to get them how they like, but a beginner would not know what they want.

If you are just starting out I would recommend rico strength 2 and go from there. I have taught 100s of beginning sax players and started them all on ricos.

Hi, what do you teach? And how do you start off? I want to make sure I am holding the sax correclty as well.

Best advice I can give you is to get some private lessons, contact the saxophone professor at your local university, they always have students that are looking to teach privately. This way you can actually have someone looking at you while you play and can correct you when you are doing something wrong and compliment you when you are doing something correctly. Welcome to the saxophone.

CJ

Hi, I did that, infact, the com college where I go to has a smll music dept. I have an appt tuesday for 10.00 am to see the chair of the department. I may be able to get 1 credit a semester for taking lessons on campus and I am a student in good standing.

I got my sax today I got a elmer AS500

<Added>

selmer NOT elmer

i use a 3in on a tenor.

Today I played my new sax, yesterday too. I have a good 3 hours under my belt LOL

It is tough. The fingerings are very tough.

Hello Yhath

If you are just starting out you may want to start out with nothing softer than a 2.
I know when I started to play I thought Rico was the only reeds out there.
I have had good response from some of the Vandoren reeds. Hemke reeds seem to respond well too.

Actually I have been using the Rico Plasticover reeds here lately. They seem to give good consistent response, you usually don't have to soak em a long time, and they seem to last a lonnnng time.

Reeds are such an individual thing. Sometimes I have to go through a number of reeds to find one that responds well. I call it Reed Roulette. It's experimental and trial and error but when you find one with that sweet spot sepearate into a small group of playable reeds.

I would say experiment till you find what works and go with that.

I found some really reasonable reed vendors on Ebay ....... I usually buy a few boxes of different types and keep experimenting till I find what works best on my horns.

The reeds are a never ending battle on the saxophone ........ yikes.


hope that helps,

donald manuel

Hi Donald, thanks for responding. I have rico royal reeds #2 and rico reed #2.5 and the man at the music store said 1.5 is just too soft do not bother with them, the do not carry them.

I would love to talk to a sax man or someone and I am still looking for an instructor, my yahoo im is yvo_hath@yahoo.com maybe we could chat or email.