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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000024.txt from 2007/04
From: "Lacy, Edwin" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [DR-L] Oboe's forked F
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:49:06 -0400
<<<I just checked my Loree Royale for the pitch difference between the=20
Forked Fs with and without the Eb key.. The forked F without the Eb=20
key is so stuffy that I can not use it, but with the Eb key it is so=20
sharp that I can't use that one either. What I do is always use the=20
regular F with or without the LH F key.>>>
This depends to a large degree on the age of the oboe. Before it became
common to include the fork F resonance key on their oboes, Loree
designed their instruments to play a reasonably good forked F WITH the
Eb key. After the advent of the resonance key, it was no longer
necessary for the Eb key to fulfill that function, so some compromises
were possible with regard to the tone hole size, placement on the
longitudinal axis, and pad height of both of these keys. On newer oboes
that have the forked F resonance key, adding the Eb will make the forked
F unacceptably sharp.
However, many fingering charts in standard method books continue to show
the Eb key as a part of the fingering for forked F. This has caused
many young players to develop a habit that is hard to break. I was
dealing with this issue in my woodwind techniques class earlier today.
On an oboe that is of fairly recent origin and that has the forked F
resonance key, it should be possible to play the forked F with good tone
quality and pitch without the Eb key. If that isn't happening, I would
suspect that reed problems may be contributing to the difficulty.
If you don't like the qualities of the forked F with the resonance key,
it is certainly possible to either fix the key so that it won't open at
all, or to stop up the forked F resonance tone hole with cork or
something similar. However, if the tone hole has been drilled, keeping
the key closed or stopping up the hole is not exactly equivalent to an
oboe without the resonance key, because of the chimney of the tone hole
and the resulting increase in the total interior volume of the bore
and/or the turbulence in the air column that may result from having the
additional tone hole in the instrument.
Ed Lacy
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