Clarinet reeds will always make me think of the smell of listerine.

My clarinet case was opened today for the first time since my graduation day. After so long I've been half afraid it had cracked or corks and pads had deteriorated.

No problems, though. I slipped a new reed out of its plastic case. Reeds are picky things. The tip becomes almost paper-thin, and if it touches anything too abruptly it will chip and may not produce any sound anymore.

Even just wetting the reed can be an art. (It has to be wet to make noise.) The first part of assembling a seven-part clarinet is putting the reed in your mouth to soak. You have to open your mouth wide enough when you put the reed in that it won't hit your teeth. It needs to go far enough in so that teeth and tongue tip are not near the reed tip, but no so far that you risk bending it on the roof of your mouth.

Purchasing the reed in the first place is yet another matter. Each clarinetist has their favorite brand and size and refuses to suffer with anything else. (For me? Mitchell Lurie 4's, please. I can live with a 3.5 if I really have to. But don't give me any of this Van Doren or Rico crap.)

And after all that work, you might have a poor reed anyway. They're so fickle. The initially awful ones can age to perfection, but they might not.

Reeds taste like wood when fresh (and like listerine when sanitized). Then they taste like your mouth. A reed used or being used is constantly fussed with because mouth slime is building up on the face of it or drying up there.

Clarinet players are like little mothers constantly fussing about their helpless wooden children.