I heard recently from Paul Saunders, whose compositions and publications for multiple woodwinds I have previously reviewed. He called my attention to an astonishing number of recent multiple-woodwinds compositions by Darren Lord, a musical director, keyboardist, and more who has worked on London’s West End theater scene.
At the time of this writing, Lord’s music for multiple woodwinds includes:
Five volumes of mostly musical-theater-style pieces for multiple woodwinds soloist, with piano or downloadable fully-orchestrated backing tracks (with synthesized orchestra). Most or all of these pieces can also be purchased individually. (I got to look in detail at volume 2 for this review.)
Five recital-type pieces for multiple woodwinds soloist with piano.
Six pieces for quartets of multiple woodwinds players.
All can be purchased on Lord’s website. There are also extensive audio demos, some played by Saunders and some synthesized.
These are high-quality, worthy additions to the multiple woodwinds repertoire. And the sheer quantity and variety of available material should make Mr. Lord’s website a certain stop for anyone looking for pieces for study or performance.
I’ve made a substantial update to my Music for woodwind doublers page to include these pieces. Please continue to keep me updated on new or rediscovered multiple woodwinds repertoire!
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.
I’ve posted a few times previously about synthetic reeds, which I believe are the inevitable future of woodwind playing. Last June (2025) I published an article in The Clarinet surveying the clarinet reeds currently on the market.
Because The Clarinet doesn’t endorse specific products, I stuck to factual information about the reeds I sampled. Eight different makers sent samples, with the understanding that it wouldn’t be a “review” per se.
I personally found some of the reeds to be surprisingly playable, and others to be dismally bad. (To be fair, some other fine players tested them too, and their conclusions didn’t always match mine.) After the article was published, I reached out to a few of the makers to see if they would be amenable to me using the free samples they had sent for a genuine review here on my blog.
Luckily, the makers of my two favorites agreed to this, so here are some thoughts on those.
D’Addario Venn
D’Addario Woodwinds has sent me a number of products for review over the years, and I have been generally quite pleased with them; a number of their products are still my go-tos for clarinet and saxophone. But they are a relative newcomer to the synthetic reed market, and some first-generation samples I received a few years ago had (by a D’Addario rep’s admission) some quality concerns, so I wasn’t expecting to be wowed. But to my surprise and pleasure they turned out to be my favorites of the bunch (by a narrow margin).
For me, these were an easy transition from my cane reeds of choice (D’Addario Reserve and sometimes Reserve Evolution). A D’Addario representative tells me the Venn synthetics are not meant to be an exact reproduction of any of their cane reeds, but a new Venn-specific cut. Still, they were familiar enough in feel that I hardly noticed the difference, and came very, very close in sound.
In fact, after using the Venns exclusively in my studio for a few weeks, I felt confident enough to try them in an orchestral context. After playing part of a rehearsal on a Venn reed, I took advantage of a short break to switch back to a favorite cane reed for a quick comparison. To my dismay, another musician in the orchestra (a woodwind player but not a clarinetist) said, “now that’s a reed!”
The verdict: the Venn comes pretty close to replacing cane for me, and in terms of function (response, dynamic range, articulation, etc.) seems like an equal match. But tone, though quite good, doesn’t yet seem to fully measure up, at least not for me and my setup.
The Venn reeds look very much like real cane, in color and fibrous structure. In fact, they look so similar to cane reeds that I’ve had to be extra careful trying to keep them separate. I might welcome some distinctive marking to set them apart visually from cane.
The Venns are smoother and slicker than cane, which feels nice on my lip but does require a little extra care to make sure I get them properly aligned on the mouthpiece.
Légère French Cut
Légère reeds are what pop to mind for me, and I suspect a lot of others, when I think of synthetic reeds. They were the first really viable synthetics I tried, somewhere around 25 years ago, and I have always had some since. They have been a lifesaver especially for playing larger reeds in dry climates, or instruments I play less frequently, or for woodwind doubling situations. Their product line is mature and diverse, which is an advantage over D’Addario.
The French Cut is one of the newer models, and my favorite of the available offerings. Among the players who tested reeds with me, preferences were somewhat split between the French Cut and the also-newish European Cut.
I also spent a few weeks playing exclusively on the French Cut clarinet reed, and found it very pleasant and easy to play. Like the Venn, it checks all my boxes for function. I do find that with my setup the French Cut has a little different tone compared to Venn and my favorite cane reeds, but only a little, and not in an unpleasant way.
I did use the French Cut for performance in a musical theater setting, where I was playing only a small amount of clarinet and could get away with tone a little different from my usual. As expected for a synthetic reed, this was great for switching instruments without worrying about reeds drying out. (I used Légère bass clarinet and saxophone reeds on the same gig.)
For me, they run a very close second to the Venns in terms of function and tone, but it’s a narrow enough margin to probably chalk up to personal preference or the quirks of my mouthpiece.
Visually, they won’t be mistaken for cane—they are made in Légère’s characteristic clear synthetic material. I don’t mind the look, but if I’m careless about where I set one, it can be hard to spot from across the room. Their slightly textured surface gives them more of the grippy-ness of cane, which feels familiar on my lip and doesn’t require any special effort to place on the mouthpiece.
Both
The Venn and Légère synthetics, of course, both share the positive qualities of synthetic materials: longevity, consistency, and impervious-ness to climate. Both are instantly ready to play with no soaking. At the time of this writing, they seem to be selling for almost exactly the same price per reed, which is to say about the cost of a box of 10 cane reeds.
Both brands also make saxophone reeds, which I’ve dabbled with but haven’t had as much opportunity to test thoroughly.
Have I switched?
As I concluded in the article in The Clarinet, I do think that there are some quite viable options for switching fully to synthetic reeds for professional playing, and these two products are certainly among them. Some world-class players have already made the switch to using synthetics exclusively.
I personally haven’t. While I still believe synthetics are the future, I find myself in a transitional phase. I’ll keep both the Venns and the Légères on hand, and will likely continue to use both at least sporadically. But I’m not fully ready to give up my cane reeds yet.
I suspect both companies are continuing to refine and develop their product lines, and if their next rounds of offerings are even small improvements on the current products, that may be enough for me to switch over completely.
Or, if I decided the hassles of cane were too much, I might be able to switch to current synthetic products and adapt my playing to them. I live in a humid climate where I find cane reeds relatively easy to care for, but if I found myself performing in a drier atmosphere or higher altitude that might be enough to convince me to change. Even if I needed to change mouthpieces to get the best out of the synthetic reeds, it might well be worth it.
Should you switch?
I think it’s important to remember that someone else’s experiences with a product, including mine, are personal and based on a variety of factors, including what other equipment they use, the finer points of their playing technique, and many other musical and practical factors. The only good way to know if synthetics are right for you is to try them.
That’s also why I’m not including audio samples here. You will get much more useful information by trying them yourself. (And my experience in the orchestra rehearsal was a good reminder to me that it’s worth getting an unbiased opinion from someone with good ears.)
In any case, the high-quality synthetic reeds currently on the market are an exciting and promising development, and I look forward to what’s next.
Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of jazz musician bloggers opining about the evils of memorizing patterns and “licks,” and calling for original and creative improvisation. While I don’t think anybody will argue about the importance of individuality and creativity, I do think it’s a big mistake to ignore the value of memorizing, practicing, and internalizing established jazz vocabulary.
When a person learns a foreign language, they learn first to repeat some standard useful phrases. Then they learn to rearrange the vocabulary and syntax of those phrases to create new ones. Over a lifetime of study and practice, they may learn the language well enough to speak or write with their own distinctive creative voice. But if a student tries on the first day of French class to be creative and original, they aren’t likely to make much sense. To speak the language, you need to hear it, imitate it, and then repeat over and over. Genuine individual originality comes much, much later.
If you listen to a lot of Kenny Garrett, and if you take it upon yourself to transcribe a bunch of Kenny Garrett solos, and if you steep yourself in those Kenny Garrett solos, then chances are you will come out sounding an awful lot like Kenny Garrett.
Now, if that’s all you aspire to, then that’s where you’ll end up: as a Kenny Garrett clone. But if you desire to forge your own voice, then Kenny will simply become a part of your vocabulary, a vocabulary that includes other influences besides Kenny and increasingly reflects your personal explorations with melody, harmony, timbre, and nuance. You are an individual, after all, and the sheer force of your individuality will direct you toward your own sound and approach.
A good writer doesn’t become one by attempting to create a different dictionary. He or she develops expertise by becoming conversant with the existing language, and that happens largely through reading the works of great writers who have gone before. Through careful scrutiny and application of how others have handled the English language, the individual’s personal writing style emerges.
Shakespeare is noted for adding a huge number of words and phrases to the English language—undoubtedly one of the most creative minds working in that medium. But how many of the words and phrases in his works were really brand new inventions? Surely less than 1%. And how much did Charlie Parker or John Coltrane add to the jazz language, that wasn’t already there? Their contributions are staggeringly significant, but what they actually created out of thin air was a drop in the bucket among all the notes they played in their careers. For most of us mortals, our truly original contributions to the language (be it English or jazz) are few and far between; most of our creativity happens when we shuffle and remix the materials that are already before us.
Bob backs up his ideas about the importance of jazz vocabulary with his Giant Steps Scratch Pad project. The Scratch Pad provides a wealth of tasty and useful vocabulary for playing over the chord changes to John Coltrane’s tune “Giant Steps,” a tune that has challenged the best of jazz players for decades because of its unusual and elegantly symmetrical chord progression. Bob was kind enough to send me a review copy of the Giant Steps Scratch Pad Complete, a new PDF-only (at least for now) edition that contains the same material as the Scratch Pad, transposed into all twelve keys. The transposed material makes this especially good for those who aspire to play Giant Steps in all twelve keys, or who double on instruments of different transpositions.
I had some concerns about the stability of my flute on the flute/clarinet pegs, but got some advice in the comments section that the DS602B peg (sold separately) might be better. In the meantime, I’ve gotten to like other aspects of the stand well enough that I decided I needed a smaller version for one-saxophone gigs, so I recently picked up the DS530BB stand, which holds one alto or tenor saxophone and includes no pegs (though it has sockets to accept up to two). Most of my comments in the previous review apply to the DS530BB, so I’ll just provide a couple of photos:
Despite my poor photography, you can gather that it folds up to just over a foot long.
It also includes a bright yellow drawstring bag, and the string makes it a little easier to carry if you’ve already got your arms full of instruments.
The DS602B “Deluxe” peg, which Hercules indicates is for “French/German Clarinets and Flutes,” is quite good. It works for my clarinets and oboe as well as the standard combination pegs that come with the DS538B, and works much, much better for my flute.
I tried to demonstrate the stability difference between the standard peg and the deluxe peg. You can see it a bit in the photos below, but I think I failed to really capture the improvement in the deluxe peg. Read More “Follow-up: Hercules woodwind stands”
A new semester is starting, and my university students have new required recordings.
There are a number of criteria that go into these selections, but I mentioned one in particular back in the spring:
So far my two-semester tally, selecting recordings for four different instruments, is six white men and two white women. I’d like to improve on that in the future, though I do think that, ultimately, what comes through the earphones is more central to this project than the colors or genders represented on the CD covers.
I think I did manage to pick out two this semester that add a little diversity, and certainly without compromising one bit on quality: my oboe students are getting a fine recording by Brazilian oboist Alex Klein, and the saxophonists will be enjoying a new release by African-American saxophonist (and one of my teachers) Otis Murphy. On the other hand, I did end up with all men this time around.
One other victory this semester is that all these recordings are available for download on iTunes. I still like having the CD myself, but iTunes is a convenient and, more importantly, economical option for my students.
Here are the selections:
Oboe: Alex Klein, Oboe Concertos of the Classical Era
This semester, I’m having my each of my students add a good chamber music recording to their library. The students required to buy these recordings are technically enrolled in applied lessons, which means they study solo repertoire, although I do also coach some of them in chamber music. But even those whose degree requirements don’t specify chamber group participation ought to have at least the most passing of acquaintances with chamber music for their instrument.
For the saxophonists, choosing a format was simple enough—the saxophone quartet is the only significant chamber music setting with saxophones (although I did consider using this recording).
For the other reed players, I considered some options (double reed quartets, clarinet quartets or choirs, bassoon quartets…) but ultimately settled on a wind quintet recording for the clarinetists and double reeders. This may be the only chamber recording I require any of them to buy during the course of their 4-year (well, hopefully 4-year) education—I could possibly choose one more in another couple of years—and I wanted to make it count. The wind quintet tradition is rich and, in woodwind terms, long.
As usual, I was looking for good collections of fairly standard repertoire by exemplary musicians, reasonably priced and readily available. I had to steer clear of some tempting wind quintet choices by outstanding European groups, since I wanted to make sure my students are absorbing American-school ideas about tone. I also gave strong consideration to a great 2-disc set by the Utah Saxophone Quartet (which includes a couple of my former teachers; incidentally, all four members are really excellent doublers and they play some nice clarinet quartets on this recording, too), which I ultimately passed on because it’s not (yet?) available on iTunes and I’m trying to be 21st-century enough not to demand that my students buy physical discs.
So here’s what I finally settled on:
Borealis Wind Quintet, A La Carte: Short Works for Winds
Repertoire: Rota Petite Offrande Musicale, Farkas Hungarian Dances, Beach Pastorale, Schuller Suite, Grainger: Walking Tune, Turrin: Three Summer Dances, Persichetti: Pastoral, Milhaud: La Cheminee du Roi Rene, Briccialdi: Potpourri Fantastico
This album was nominated for a Grammy award in 2006.
I saw a post a couple of months ago by Patty Mitchell (reigning champion of online oboe journalism) about the iPhone app Oboe Reed Maker PRO, and decided to bite the bullet, part with the $1.99, and take it for a spin. Here is my review. As is my custom lately, I have tried to keep the review balanced and accurate by involving the maker of the product. In this case that is Christopher Gaudi of the San Francisco Symphony and OboeClass.com.
(Note that this is a review of version 1.0 of the app, so if you’re reading this after my publication date, then the app may have changed by now. I’ll update this post if I use any future versions that have changes worth mentioning; you’re also welcome to add your own updates in the comments.)
In the world of iPhone apps, I’ve grown accustomed to getting a lot of good stuff for free, and hesitate even to buy a 99-cent app unless I’m sure it’s going to be great. For $1.99, it had better be outstanding! However, in the past I’ve paid the better part of $100 for individual books on reed making, so, realistically, $1.99 isn’t much if you’re looking for a few tidbits of information. And that’s what this app offers. If you’re interested in this thing, think of it as a very cheap book (a pamphlet, really), rather than an expensive app. Here is the main screen, as shown in the iTunes store:
If you’re reading this on my website you’ll see a border that I have added to the image, which reveals some white space at the bottom (the border might not show up in RSS feeds, etc.). Note that this space, in the actual app, contains an advertisement (at the moment, a 1-800 number for a criminal defense attorney). In my opinion, including ads is bad form for a paid application. There are additional monetization efforts built into the app. The “Oboe Gear” button leads to affiliate links to Amazon products, which are providing someone, presumably Mr. Gaudi, with additional income. The “More” button provides income-generating affiliate links to additional paid apps, some ostensibly music-related, some not. Mr. Gaudi responds:
I can understand the criticism of the ads in a paid app though I hope you can understand the need to monetize it. The app wasn’t created for free. There was a considerable cost to produce it and there are costs to revise and update it over time. I hope you can appreciate the need for monetary compensation for those who create a product for sale. My time and knowledge is worth something, just as my private students pay for weekly lessons as do countless other oboe students across the country pay for private lessons.
This is a fair response, I think, if the user knows they are paying for a product that will include advertisements; I was unaware of the ads before my purchase but you can consider yourself now warned. For every other app on my phone, paid versions are reliably ad-free. In my opinion, it would make more sense in the current app marketplace to raise the price on the app itself, if necessary, and scrap the ads, or maybe keep at least some of the ads/monetization and give the app away for free.
The actual useful content of the app is accessed with the green “Reed Maker” and “Reed Doctor” buttons. The “Reed Maker” button leads to a summary of the reed scraping process, starting with a reed blank (tying is not addressed). The summary is ten pages, most with one or two sentences of text, and each showing the same image of a reed with different areas highlighted. Knife technique is not addressed, just which areas to scrape in which order. There are some interesting bits of information here, but be forewarned that this app does not attempt to teach the full process of reedmaking. (It doesn’t specifically claim to, but you don’t know what ground the instruction covers until you buy.) Mr. Gaudi points out: Read More “Review: Oboe Reed Maker PRO iPhone app”
I love these!