Author: oboedrew
Date: 2008-12-21 01:52
vboboe wrote:
> this disrespectful derision requires rebuttal,
> you may certainly choose to disagree, but
> using abusive language in shouting caps to
> do so is unacceptable
> after my experience with the complexity of
> making american scrape reeds, yes, there is
> definitely is an interaction of numerous factors,
> but those complexities of themselves do not
> over-ride or negate simple principles of cutting reeds
Whoa, vboboe, slow down there. Disrespectful derision? Abusive language? My post is certainly critical, but of a general class of literature, not of any particular individual or of any particular written document. I unapologetically stand by my remarks. In my experience, "quick guides" to reedmaking do more harm than good. They are DANGEROUS (caps are sometimes for emphasis... they're not always shouting).
"If the reed is flat, clip the tip." This is the sort of advice I see in many such summaries. It is true that a shorter reed is a sharper reed, all other factors being equal. But all other factors are NEVER equal (again, emphasizing... not shouting), and rarely in reedmaking can you isolate a single factor and change it without inadvertently changing others. When you clip the tip, you shorten the reed. But there are other side effects of this adjustment, and they are seldom discussed in the sort of literature of which I am critical.
When you clip the tip, it tends to spring open a bit. A more open reed is a flatter reed. So when you clip the tip to make the reed shorter and therefore sharper, you also make it more open and therefore flatter. These two effects of clipping the tip sometimes cancel each other out, leaving the aspiring reedmaker wondering why the prescribed adjustment didn't work.
When you clip the tip, you are removing the thinnest part of the reed. This is assuming, of course, that the tip has been structured correctly in the first place, tapered toward the end and toward the sides, such that the corners are the thinnest point. So clipping the tip has not only given you a reed that is shorter and likely more open, but it has also thrown off the proportions of the various sections. The tip is thicker at its very end and at its corners, and it is shorter and thicker relative to the heart and back. Thus, once the tip has been clipped, additional adjustments may be required to the end of the tip, to the heart, to the back, to the transition from heart to tip or back to heart, or to all of the above.
And to give any useful advice about any of these adjustments, you have to know something about the reedmaker's basic setup (staples, cane, shape, gouge, style of scrape, embouchure, oboe, etc.).
In the end, it may be that "clip the tip" was all wrong. In some cases, the reedmaking article would have been better off saying "If the reed is flat, don't scrape so much out of the center of the heart in the first place!" But you never know what medicine to prescribe when you're trying to help a reedmaker whose reeds you've never seen. For this reason, I find the majority of the literature on reedmaking more harmful than useful to aspiring reedmakers. I'm sure there are some good books out there, but the quick summaries that abound online... eeek! Definitely dangerous!
Cheers,
Drew
www.oboedrew.com
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