Clarinet

I ended up buying the 3.0 Légère European cut because idk. Some people on line said the strength on the Légère reeds were softer or harder than other reeds. To me they're about the same as the Vandoren reeds, idk.

I should have gotten a 3.5.

In terms of feel, wow. They feel different than cane reeds. Definitely feels like plastic in your mouth, but then you forget about it when you start playing.

Compared to cane reeds, the plasticness of the reed really makes a different in terms of tone. With cane reeds, you can really control the tone of a note. You can bend it to make it really flat or really sharp really easily. For the style of music I play, this is essential. With the Légère, you can also mostly do this, but it takes more effort. The default tone with the Légère is very... firm... very robotic? I could see this strong firm tone being great for formal music.

The other thing I noticed with feel is that the Légère seems to vibrate less than cane reeds. The cane reeds vibrate more up and down, maybe due to weaker fibers or light fractures? It's very subtle, but something that added to the firmness of the Légère.

I just finished a gig where I played 1 hour with the Légère and 1 hour with my old trusty Vandoren traditional ... and I think I prefer the cane reeds.

Granted the Vandoren traditional is a 3.5 and the Légère is a 3.0... maybe I'll buy a Légère 3.5 and try again. But the Légère does seem less expressive than cane, so idk... Maybe the Légère isn't a great fit for the type of music I play.

Oh! Also, very important! The ligatures on my mouthpiece fit weird with the Légère reed. There's a little notch that fits over the reeds. It's a Vandoren mouthpiece/ligature, so the Vandoren reeds fit perfectly.

The Légère European cut is wider than the Vandoren traditionals, so I probably need a different ligature that properly fits the Légère. This definitely affected the performance of the Légère. I noticed it didn't sit perfectly with the mouthpiece, allowing a little bit of spit to escape through the sides of the reed.

Overall, a neat experiment. I haven't tried synthetic reeds in a very long while.

I've been playing a lot of music that is very high recently, up to altissimo A. I noticed after playing this section the inside of my lip hurts because I am biting so hard. I can even see an indent where my teeth were.

Is there anything I can do to relieve this pain. Would moving up a reed strength help, or is a habitual thing I need to fix? My setup RN is either a Vandoren Blue Box 3s or La Voz Medium (jazz) on a Vandoren B45 mp and Vadoren Optimum ligature

Returning to clarinet after playing in school 150 years ago. My teacher assigned me Rose Etude No 1, and I'm finding it very challenging! Particularly the fast runs, my fingers seem to have little minds of their own and the notes are not so even. Anyone have any great tips for tackling it?