Started teaching a new student saxophone, Maria. She has been playing for a few weeks now.

The a few days ago she was having more trouble playing, seemed to give her a headache. So I checked out her mouthpiece and reed and saw a small chip. I could still play it, but it was more difficult. She had been careful with the reed, but that happens sometimes!

And for someone just starting, it becomes a lot harder to play like that!

You want to be very careful with reeds, since even a small chip will make it harder to play!

And you should have some backups in case this does happen. Reeds don’t last forever either, so you want backups.

Generally, you’ll want a number 1.5 or 2 in the first months of playing saxophone. Maybe even the first year. After a year, 2 or 2.5 should be fine.

You may want to move up to a 3 or 3.5 at some point, depending on your own preference.

It also depends on the mouthpiece you use.

It’s good to support local music shops, so you can get reeds there.

You can also order them in boxes.

Rico, Vandoren, La Voz are decent, especially early on. I play on Ricos these days again, just like I did in my first year of playing. Have tried different kinds, can be good to experiment.

Early on though, it’s not going to make a huge difference in how you sound. So you don’t really need the best reeds, you just want ones that are good enough.

 

1.5 and 2 Rico reeds for alto sax:

Rico Alto Sax Reeds, Strength 1.5, 10-pack

Rico Alto Sax Reeds, Strength 2.0, 10-pack

2 Rico Reeds for tenor sax:

Rico Tenor Sax Reeds, Strength 2.0, 10-pack

A few other things that are good to have:

Alto sax:
Hodge Alto Sax Silk Swab

Tenor sax:
Hodge Tenor Sax Silk Swab