[Harp-L] re: reed shapes and materials

[Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Randy writes:

"Regarding reed shapes, I think a reed narrower at the free end would  
be highly resistant
to the torsional stall / overtone thing. "

Perhaps.  I think I'd need to have a lot more trapezoidal reeds to  
experiment with to be able to say either way.  The only ones I have  
easy access to are the slightly tapered reeds in the Suzuki Alto  
Single.  These bend (single reed bend) very easily without any  
ringing or other effects.  They also overdraw in a stable and non- 
screaming/ringing manner.  But that's a sample of one, and so who's  
to say whether it's the shape of the reed or the profile of the reed  
(shape being as looked on from above, profile from the side).  And  
similarly, I can't say if this is typical of trapezoidal reeds in  
general, or just these ones from this particular model harp.  I need  
to look a bit more into Turbodog's experiments to see how increased  
reed width at one end might effect those results.

It seems Suzuki was very interested in the stability of their higher  
end harps (the Pure Harp (PH) and Firebreath (FB)) for bending and  
overblowing especially.  And they have experience with trapezoidal  
reeds in their Alto and Soprano Singles, so I wonder if they looked  
into some sort of non-rectangular shape while designing the PH and FB.



 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()
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