Saxophone Reeds: A Complete Guide to Choosing the Right Reed

What is a Reed?

The starting point of your saxophone's sound

The saxophone reed is cut from the arundo donax cane plant and shaved and filed into its distinctive shape. As all reeds are cut from natural plant material, they can be very inconsistent in their material composition. Consistency is the first thing a player is looking for when selecting a reed. Although no two woodwind reeds will ever be the same, different brands of sax reeds offer different tonal qualities, and within that, different levels of consistency.

Parts of a Reed

It helps to know the basic anatomy of a reed so you can assess and compare them. The tip is the thinnest part at the top — this is what vibrates most freely and drives the sound. The vamp is the scraped section below the tip, and its thickness and length determine how resistant the reed feels to blow. The heart is the thicker central section of the vamp — a well-balanced heart gives the reed its core and projection. The heel is the flat, unscraped base that sits in the ligature.

Breaking In a New Reed

New reeds should always be broken in gradually before playing through a full session. Wet the reed thoroughly before playing — many players simply place it in their mouth for 60–90 seconds. For the first few days, limit playing time on each new reed to 10–15 minutes, then allow it to dry completely and rest before playing again. This allows the fibres to expand and settle evenly, extending the life of the reed significantly and improving consistency. Playing a dry, unbroken reed at full pressure immediately is the fastest way to warp it.

What About Synthetic Reeds?

Synthetic reeds — made from materials such as carbon fibre composite rather than cane — are an increasingly popular alternative. Brands such as Légère are widely used by professional players and offer near-perfect consistency: every reed in a box plays identically, there is no break-in period, and they are not affected by humidity. They are considerably more expensive per reed (one synthetic reed costs roughly the same as a box of 10 cane reeds) but they last far longer. For beginners, cane reeds remain the better starting point as the slightly varied resistance actually helps develop sensitivity in the embouchure, but synthetic reeds are well worth exploring once you are more established.

Which Reed Should I Use?

Beginner saxophone reeds — our recommendation

Saxophone Reeds for Beginners

The main consideration for beginner players is consistency. When learning from scratch, it can be challenging to play with a consistent embouchure technique. With that in mind, it's very important to have as consistent and stable a platform as possible in the mouthpiece construction. That's why I recommend the Rico Royal brand for either alto reeds or tenor reeds. They tend to be very consistent with their construction — solid and dependable — and you will be able to use every reed in the box without too much variation between reed quality. Once you have your reed sorted, take a look at our saxophone fingering charts to get started on the notes.

Buy Rico Royal beginner saxophone reeds

What Reed Strength Should I Use?

Choosing the right resistance for your level

For more advanced players, this is a complex and important question, the answer to which is driven by the type of sound the player wants to produce. For beginners, however, it's a simple question. In choosing reed strength we want a reed that will be easy enough to blow without generating tension in the player, but not so soft that the reed closes when blown.

For Rico reeds, this translates to a strength 1.5 for children, or a strength 2 for adults and teenagers. Vandoren sax reeds have greater resistance, so I do not recommend these for beginners.

What are the Best Reeds for Jazz?

Finding your sound — Vandoren Java Jazz

A very difficult question to answer! Before asking this question, ask yourself: "What kind of sound do I want to make?" Listen to your favourite saxophone players and decide whether they are making a bright or dark sound — use this context to inform your choice of reed and mouthpiece. If you would like personalised guidance on this, saxophone lessons are a great way to get direct advice tailored to your playing.

I really like Vandoren alto sax reeds for jazz, specifically the Vandoren Java Jazz brand. I've found they have a great potential for projection and a really versatile set of tone colours. There are two subcategories sold in green and red wrappers, with the red potentially having a slightly darker sound.

These reeds provide a huge range of tone colours, but have the potential to be much more inconsistent in material composition. If you are fussy about how hard it is to play any given reed, or if you are near the start of your saxophone studies, you may end up having to discard at least a few from every box of ten.

Buy Vandoren Java Jazz saxophone reeds

Where Can I Buy Reeds?

Use a specialist shop for the best selection

It may be tempting to just buy from Amazon, but a shop like Reeds Direct — a dedicated reed vendor — provides very fast delivery times and easy methods for re-ordering. They also have a huge selection of saxophone reeds, the full range of woodwind reeds for other instruments, and a complete selection of brands. Whether you are looking for reeds for tenor saxophone or alto saxophone, check out Reeds Direct.

Buy saxophone reeds from Reeds Direct

How Do I Attach a Reed to the Mouthpiece?

A common question from beginners — answered step by step

Attaching the reed is a little tricky, and the exact alignment of the reed onto the mouthpiece is required to generate a stable platform for tone production. The reed must sit flush with the flat face of the mouthpiece, with just a sliver of the mouthpiece tip visible above the reed tip. Even a slight misalignment will affect your sound and response.

We have a full tutorial guide and demo video on how to attach the reed and assemble the saxophone mouthpiece correctly:

Watch: How to Assemble the Saxophone Mouthpiece