Hello Mike,
The use of cord of various types in the bore is an old woodwind
technique which has the primary effect of lowering the pitch but is
also effective in quietening the instrument to some degree. However,
permeable material really needs to be used wet, and in a dry blown
instrument is likely to 'distort the sound' just as you described.
I'd suggest using lengths of thin wire, diameter to be decided by
experimentation and whatever is available. If you are fortunate this
may reduce the volume sufficiently without needing significant
alteration to the sounding pitch of the reeds.
Composite reeds can often sound loud in comparison with the cane
equivalents, perhaps because they are designed to do so. The use of
all-cane reeds might solve the difficulty, but a bit of wire is
probably the fastest, cheapest and simplest solution.
Francis
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