Quality indicators for woodwind reed material

For the generation of sound, some woodwind musical instruments, e.g. oboe, bassoon, clarinet and saxophone, are provided with mouthpieces made from re eds. These reeds are the culms of Arundo donax, a tall, cane-like perennial grass. A general problem is that the material is of varying quality, yet e xternally differences cannot be observed. Hence. large proportions of the p repared reeds are unusable. One hypothesis is that the changes in quality a re correlated with differences in the chemical and anatomical structure of the tissue. Therefore, a comparison of superior and inferior mouthpieces, u sed by professional musicians, was undertaken to determinate potential indi cators of quality. Nuclear microprobe analysis of reeds was carried out and complemented by scanning electron and light microscopy. The elemental leve ls of Si, P, S, Cl, K and Ca were compared between good and poor mouthpiece s using appropriate statistical tests. No statistically significant differe nces could be identified. Microscopical observations showed that partial oc clusion of vessels by tylose formation was associated with material deemed unusable. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.