A note of some mild profundity

It is said that All good things must come to an end.  I am not sure this is true.  Many a good thing draws to an end, granted;  but some of the good things — the best of things, indeed — endure, or perhaps morph into yet better things.

Still, in the case of some things, it were imprudent to carry on as if the good thing would never end.

The reed I play on — my concert-performance reed — I have played on for . . . let me say simply an improbably long time.  I am sure that, in part, this is because playing the clarinet is long become one of my relatively part-time endeavors.  Still, the fact remains that if I told a fellow clarinetist just how long I have been using this reed (a reed which still sounds mighty good), that colleague would stare at me, possibly as if I had three heads.

I have long understood that I need to get more playable reeds into the Understudy Pen.  The conundrum has been, there was one source in the US (and that, an exclusive source) for the reeds I have used since studying clarinet with Nancy Garlick at The College of Wooster in the '80s:  Morré German cut . . . and to the best of my sketchy knowledge (yea, even in these days of The Information Super-Highway) that place of business no longer conducts business.  (I expect a well-earned retirement is the simple explanation.)

Earlier this year (I believe . . . but I cannot be held to that;  time rolls on, and not infrequently, an event is in a past more remote than my present recollection suggests) there was an ad in my Facebook feed for a new brand of reed . . . and so. D'Addario have sent me a sampling of reeds.

My process (as may be seen from this blog post) is of necessity gradual, and quite personal;  but I have spent probably half a dozen practice sessions over the past half a year playing on a D'Addario reed.  I am not yet in a position to make a full enthusiastic endorsement, but the performance so far (again, to clarify, I have as yet only practiced at home on the reed) has been very encouraging.

This present recital on Tuesday, I shall (Lord willing, and the creek don't rise) play on my grizzled veteran Morré;  but my intention is to give the D'Addario a shot soon.  perhaps on the concert(s) down Atlanta way in November.