A perfect lesson in reedmaking

I've been doing a lot of reedmaking practice this week.  I've had a week off work, the weather has been too poor to go out so it's been the perfect opportunity.  I also had a reedmaking lesson with my teacher this week which gave me lots of new things to try and think about.

I have to admit that I was feeling quite pleased with myself at the start of the lesson.  Before my last reedmaking lesson I didn't even really know how to tie on a reed, and now I can pretty consistently make reeds that are playable.  I wouldn't necessarily play them in public but I can manage a practice session on them.  Surely it was only matter of tweaking them a bit to get that final refinement.  I was beginning to think that reedmaking wasn't really as difficult as people made out.  Which just goes to show that ignorance really is bliss.

Needless to say that this attitude didn't last long.  My teacher wasn't as impressed as I was by my reeds.  The tips are raggedy and to get round that I am clipping them too short, my scrape isn't long enough, some of them are overbound and my knife technique needs work.  My knife also needed sharpening.

She did say that they seemd to be bound on well and the scraping was generally quite smooth and even, for a beginner.  She even said that they played much better than she would have expected.

The lesson itself felt a bit uncomfortable at the time as I was being pushed out of my "comfort zone" and trying to do things differently but, in retrospect, it was actually a perfect lesson and I came out of it with three important things:
1. The bar set higher, no longer is it enough just to make a reed that plays.  My understanding of what I am aiming to do is increased.
2. Specific things that I need to change/ practice in order to improve.  We looked in detail at my scraping technique, and where it was going wrong.
3. Confirmation that I am making progress had been made even if it was slower than I would like.

I suppose it reminded me, again, that feeling a little bit uncomfortable in lessons is a good thing because it means I'm being pushed and that feeling frustrated that my actual playing, or reedmaking, doesn't match up to what I want it to be is also a good thing because that is what drives my practice.
So over this week I have sorted through my reeds and ruthlessly put aside those not up to standard.  I've been using those as scraping practice.   I have been practicing my scraping technique, cutting the reeds, scraping the tip, cutting the reed, scraping the tip - trying to avoid damaging the corners by keeping my knife parallel to the reed, not pressing down too hard, keeping my thumb behind the blade as a pivot not on top, doing small movemnets not large sweeps, moving up the reed to the corners and then moving my knife along so I don't just use one part of the blade.  I've also been sharpening my knife. Having made lots of space in my reed box,  I've started filling it up again by tying on another 7 to see if I can make some better ones.