I like my students to start making reeds as soon as possible. I find that most don’t really take to it right away, but once in a while a student will fall in love with reed making. I currently have a ninth grade student who makes all of her own reeds. I rarely have to help her with them. I can’t take credit for it. I can only take credit for introducing her to reed making at an early age.
During the fall—after marching band season is over but before Thanksgiving—I host a Reed Party. I schedule it for 90 minutes on a Saturday afternoon. My students are excited about it because I have been talking it up since September. I also let them invite any other bassoon friends they have from their schools, youth orchestras, All-state, etc. This usually results in a group of ten students. (It also can result in new students!) I like to have one experienced reed maker for every three newbies. That way the veteran can help with putting on wires and I don’t have to teach each student individually.
A few weeks before each reed class, I contact various double reed shops and ask them to send catalogs and any promotional items they have. I have had great success with this! Here is a photo of some of my recent acquisitions:
I give out the catalogs and a supply list at the beginning of the reed party. Then I spend about 20 minutes explaining what all the different reed tools are called. If there are some items that I don’t personally own (e.g. a profiler), we look at them in the catalogs. Students are always late, so this little 20 minute talk gives the stragglers time to show up.
Once the students are familiar with the tools, we dive right in! I have them make reeds from GSP cane. For the last few years I have been using Charles Student GSP cane. I like this cane for two big reasons: it plays the minute you cut the tip & it’s cheap. It doesn’t make my very favorite reeds, but it suits the purpose very well.
I take the students through each step of the forming process, checking each student’s work after each step. (Do not let a student try to make more than one reed. I had some tricksters try this last year and it slowed us WAY down.) Once the reeds are formed, I have them write their initials on the reeds and place them on my drying rack for two weeks. After the reeds have dried, I either finish the reeds with students individually in their lessons, or I host another group Reed (finishing) Party! See this post for how I run my reed finishing classes.
I’ll usually teach another reed class in the spring. Or sometimes I teach individual lessons on reed making to interested students. Even if a student only makes a reed once a year from grades 7-12, that is still a pretty good foundation for college.
This is a cool idea! What tools do you actually have them working with during this class? Since it’s GSP cane, do you do much with files/knives?
This is amazing. I really wish I would have had this experience before I came to college. I had my teacher make me a few reeds, but it definitely still is not the same as me making them myself and knowing what I like.
Starting reed making while in high school would have been a really big leg up for me before college. My teachers didn’t really explain to me what they did to my reeds when they would adjust them. I recently showed some high school students some things about making reeds and I was surprised at how much they enjoyed it. Earlier the better!