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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000008.txt from 2003/09
From: David Lurie <david.lurie@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [DR-L] Oboe Reeds Strength
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 12:04:53 -0400
At 07:48 AM 9/1/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>I was wondering if someone can tell me about oboe reeds strength. What
>make the reeds we make/buy soft or medium or hard? Is it the gouging
>process or the scraping or both?
Hi Sameer
Well, the questions you are asking require not only an encyclopedia to
answer adequately, but also a lifetime of experience. I will try to give
you some simple (therefore simplistic) answers, which will at least I hope
point you in a right direction. First of all, the phrases "soft" "Medium"
and "hard" are themselves quite ambiguous. They could refer equally to the
strength of the opening as well as to the effort of breath pressure
required to get the reed to vibrate. I prefer to describe a reed in terms
of how hard it is to blow as the amount of resistance it has, or else to
the strength of the opening. Some have large but flexible openings, and
some small but rigid openings, or anything in between.
Now both the gouge as well as the "scrape" can affect both the resistance
and the rigidity of the opening. You can take a piece of cane that once had
a thick gouge and scrape so much cane off it that in effect it is thin. And
so on, ad infinitum. You can by altering the scrape make an infinite number
of changes to the reed. The idea - at lest the one I go by - is to set the
gouge so that the minimum amount of scraping is required to get where you
want to be in the finished reed.
>If I buy gouged shaped and folded cane will i be able to control the
>strength of the reeds during the scraping process? And if so which part of
>the reed controls it? the tip??
The answer to this question depends on the specific characteristics of the
cane that the supplier builds into it. Most of the suppliers furnish cane
that is quite similar in thickness, width and other factors. But the only
way to find out is to try some. It goes back to the idea that in order to
control all the various elements that go into a piece of cane, you have to
do all the work yourself. If you don't do it all yourself, then you have to
accept what someone else has decided these elements should be.
Another factor is of course the answer to the 2nd question, what controls
the strength of the reed? It's everywhere on the reed that you scrape. When
you scrape the tip thin, it will make the resistance less, but then that
may produce some undesirable effect in something else, like for example
make the sound too raucous. ETC ETC. This is something you must learn by
experience, that a scrape on one area will affect every other area. You can
only learn this by doing it yourself.
>And finaly what does the shape of the cane affect? I saw some cane thats
>narrow and some thats a bit wide. Anyone knows anythign about this???
A wide shape will generally give a bigger opening, which will affect many
other factors, like the pitch, your ability to control the reed, etc etc/
Conversely, a narrow shape will generally produce a reed with a smaller
opening, but will have other effects also. You have to try different widths
and different scrapes in order to settle on the best one for your own
personal style. That is why my recommendation is to study with someone who
can give you some guidance about all these things that are so important.
I hope some of this will help you.
Best wishes, and good luck.
David
