Dr. Dale Clark

 

 

 

Welcome to Clark Bassoon Reeds!

Dr. Clark will be attending,performing and exhibiting at the IDRS conference from July 19-28.  Orders placed during this time will not be shipped before July 29. 

You may pay by Paypal or an option to pay by credit card is given after you click the checkout button.

New Five-Reed Sampler available for $90.00.  Save $8.00!

New International Priority Mail shipping service of $15.00 for up to a one pound package plus insurance for over $100.00 0rder.  Your country must accept priority mail.

Contrabassoon reeds are now available for a limited time, first come - first serve, $30.00 each. 

All Clark reeds are made by Dr. Dale Clark, Adjunct Instructor of Bassoon at Arkansas State University.  Dr. Clark's reed making seminars have been presented at International Double Reed Society Conferences and his articles about reed making have been published in the Double Reed.

Dr. Clark is Principal Bassoon of the Delta Symphony, former member of the North Arkansas Symphony, and has appeared as guest Principal Bassoon with the Memphis Symphony and Arkansas Symphony Orchestras.  In 2003 he was Principal Bassoon of the Sewanee Festival Orchestra and bassoon instructor at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival.  He is a former member of the Memphis Woodwind Quintet.   Dr. Clark was a guest artist at the 2008 University of Florida-Gainesville Bassoon Day, teaching a class in bassoon reed making.  His principal teachers were Ed Knob, Keith McClelland, Gary Echols and Matthew Ruggiero.

The Reeds

I make four styles of reeds.  Style A has a shorter tube (25 mm from butt to the first wire) and is my favorite for all-around performance.  Style B has a longer tube (27mm) and is a style many traditional players prefer who use more embochure pressure.  Style A performs easily in the highest registers of the bassoon and may be the choice when performing the French literature.  Style C is similar to the B Style but is a little shorter and requires a medium amount of lip pressure.  Style R is made from Rieger cane, Style 1a shape.  It has a length of 27 mm from butt to first wire and 29 mm from first wire to the tip.  Style D reed is the Rieger 1A shape but the reed other dimensions are the same as the Style A.

Reviews

"I enjoy using your bassoon reeds (Style A).  They're the only ones I ever found that had the wires adjusted properly. Thanks."   

- Dr. Matthew Ruggiero, Assistant Principal Bassoon, Boston Symphony Orchestra (retired), Honorary Member, International Double Reed Society

"I've been playing bassoon now for some 40 years and these are the best reeds I have ever used.  The response is crisp and clear throughout the entire tonal range. I am buying three more to insure that I have a good supply. Thanks very much for making them.”                                                          

- Lowell Schwartz, Boylston, MA

"I am very pleased with your reeds and just wanted to say thank you. I've ordered reeds online from different sources in the past few years with different results. Some of the "professional" quality reeds I have bought have been very disappointing. Yours are wonderful”

-Cindy Evans, PhD., Saratoga Springs, NY

" I ordered some reeds about a month ago for students in Fayetteville; loved both styles. I am teaching privately or working through all the schools and would like to make your reeds the "official" bassoon reeds for our program. Thanks for what you are doing."                                                          

-Richard Wiseman, Fayetteville, AR

The reeds arrived very promptly. As I suspected from the appearance alone, the B style is much better for me. I've only tried one so far and it's one of the nicest reeds I've had in a while.  It speaks fairly easily, but still seems to have a lot of substance.  This is an elusive quality for me.  The toughest test of a reed for me, at least on the instrument I am playing, a beautiful old Heckel 55xx series, is G below middle C. The ability to produce a stable, in-tune G without using the resonance key is something I really treasure in a reed, and so far I am finding this in your B style.  I'm very glad to have found you on e-bay, and I hope we'll be able to continue this.  Thanks again.

-Steve Kowarsky, Melville, NY

After playing on a few of your reeds I had to write you to tell you how pleased I am with your product. I have tried many commercially available reeds and have found yours superior to the rest. The tone is rich and full, the intonation "dead-on", the response is very clean and your craftmanship's impeccable. Thank you again for making these reeds available to the public.

Philip Rugel, Battle Creek, MI