I’m one step closer to getting back in the playing habit. Over the weekend my goal was to organize my music drawer. I am using an old SmartPak (equine supplement) plastic drawer in which I store my reeds and apparently half a dozen music books, an old flute (something I’d like to learn how to play), and even reeds and such for my saxophone I’d been working on learning some time ago. (I’d blogged before about wanting to learn since the character in Hidden and Tonic Chords had to teach Alamar to play sax.) Well, over the weekend, I cleaned and sorted out the drawer.
I have a lot of reeds. Okay, so it’s a bit of an addiction. Since the more expensive reeds (Rico Royal, LaVoz, Mitchel Laurie, Vandoren, D’Addario) are all out of my budget at the moment, pre-COVID I went on a bit of a buying spree, where you could be off-brand Asian made reeds for about $5 a box. Now, I know these aren’t as good as quality, but for someone who is getting back into learning, it was a good deal. I started making it a game, trying to find different brands that I didn’t have yet. Though I also know that these are all probably the same reeds, all sold under different labels.
There’s also the joy in finding that the last time I’d visited home, I’d been gifted with a set of Archie Comic juice glasses, probably from the 1970s. My grandpa bought them at an estate sale, and I’d used them. In fact, the paper they were wrapped with was dated 10/1983 and a news article mentioned Regan being concerned about the U.S.S.R, so that’s how vintage they are. I have some duplicates and since these juices glasses are the best size for soaking reeds, I brought one out.
So I’m ready. Hopefully I’ll be able to blog next week that I’ve started, if not a daily practice again, then one that would be several times a week. My goal? To begin the Klose Clarinet Method book I have sitting on my music stand. I’ll keep you posted.
