There still seems to be a belief that you are supposed to play harder reeds as you progress. After at least 30 years of professional playing including a lot of practicing, I use 2 or 2.25 reeds mostly.
This hard reed myth possibly causes quite a bit of harm to beginners who believe it. It certainly didn’t help me.
I found it easy to get a good sound from hard reeds. Quite early on I was using #4 reeds thinking I had to use hard reeds. What this meant was I was blowing very hard and playing very loud. After a couple of years being self taught I applied to music college and surprisingly I got accepted. Once I was there they told me the reason was they they needed a loud player player to lead their big band saxophone section and it just happened all the players they had, although very good, were not loud players. I suppose they thought they would be able to tame my lack of dynamics and intonation.
But that was the problem, all I could do well was play loud. I had to work on my embouchure and air support to get a good sound from soft reads, but once I could it was great because they are way more versatile.
Of course if you try a hard reed it seems obvious at first that you can blow harder without the reed closing up. But this is a bit of a shortcut to a louder sound because you can also blow harder on soft reeds without them closing provided you have developed your embouchure and airstream support.
I believe the opposite is true, ie as you progress you work towards being able to play softer reeds. What I mean by this is that switching to a harder reed can improve your sound, but at the expense of low notes and dynamics.
So work hard on your diaphragm, make sure your air support is strong and consistent, relax your embouchure and enjoy the benefits of a much more flexible tone, sound and pitch
