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Re: Starting year 3, now gouging and shaping....

Author: HautboisJJ
Date: 2009-08-06 06:47

=D

Quoted from Geoffrey Bridges' writing on Allexperts.com:

"The Greenline set up that Albrecht Mayer uses relies on a slightly heavier gouge than yours at about .59 to .60 and a Rigoutat -2 shaper tip an big staples too. Chiaguri I think. The staples made by Rigoutat work well in my experience. Indeed their gold plated 47mm staple looks and sounds quite flash!"

From my own experience, this again relies a bit on the way the reed is scrape, generally, in France, a longer tip but shorter scrape is preferred so you use an extremely thin gouge to begin with, say, 50-55. A wide shape compensates the lack of vibrations so it is possible to make a 'typical' German scrape, if not with a slightly longer scrape of 11-12mm and a longish V shape tip.

Again, Geoffrey writes:

"I must say that I seem to be able to use any sort of reed and with a little getting used to the set up, find myself OK providing there is plenty of vibration in it. I have made short scrape reeds with .55 thickness and had some success too but the best results have come for me - at the moment - with .58/.59 Neuranter cane gouged by myself on a Michel machine. I use a Michel shape or the Rigoutat -2 or the Udo Heng shape called "Berlin". The rigoutat is very broad and the sound is lovely and warm. BUT, if the cane is too hard I find that scraping too much off the inner rails by the spine will cause flatness in the crucial areas. I sometimes have to use a 46mm staple to achieve the pitch level I want but generally not. If the cane is too soft then flatness is everywhere! I find that my reeds need to be about 70.5 - 71 ish to be at 440cps by the way.

On my Loree Royal this set up is awful!! Flat as a bannock...."

I myself make short scrape reeds so can give a bit of insight into this matter.

Assuming now that the gouge is good, at around 56 give or take, with a side center ratio of .15 difference, and with a shape that fits the staple (closes only one turn before the staple top not earlier not later), and with one side of the blade tucked into the other, creating an overlap that is equal on both sides, with perhaps a shape that many American players use, lets say the XN for instance (or a similar one?).

One can now imagine, what this will result in, is a very big internal volume, if this reed is scraped in the American way, the result will simply be, as Geoffrey puts it, "Flat as a bannock....". So there is simply not right or wrong. My scrape then that works with the above is a simple 11mm scrape with a longish tip that forms a quite distinct V shape.

Bear in mind the way most European players play, most dont let the embouchure absolutely loose, where in the American way one makes a perfect reed and let the reed do it's job and the air just flows. So a bit of biting or firmness on the sides of the embouchure is even encouraged, to be sure, no red is to be seen. The upside of this way is of course one can allow more energy in the reed and with a lot of vibrations in the reed, one can have a larger pallette of dynamics and colors by control through the embouchure. The down side is of course, it is much more tiring to play a short scrape reed, but the usual concensus is that all short scrape reeds are bad reeds thus are tiring to play, not true! Like all reeds of all shapes and sizes, we make good and bad reeds, and good short scraped reeds will be just as easy to play compared to a good American scraped reed. The difference is of course then the method of playing and the instrument, which creates the final product which can be so varied and interesting! Just listen to Francois Leleux, tell me that is a bad reed. Hah!

When i took lessons with Douvas in Canada, she emphasized how important it was to keep an 'inner' tip with an overlap so that the reeds can have a higher register where you dont have to adjust your embouchure to get up to. This all makes perfect sense. On a 'typical' short scrape reed, the upper register on a Loree Royale usually sags, so does the middle c, so a different way of making the reed is necessary. If you think of the common sense behind all these, a long scrape reed has to be long just because the reed is overlapped, creating a small internal volume, and not having a long scrape will simply result in a very sharp reed! In the Netherlands, we have reed makers, in fact, a certain Mark too, that visits our Bboard, that makes long scraped reeds with no distinct spine (because that is already built in the gouge) not overlapped and tied in the European way as i have mentioned, with a very thick gouge (around 65?), but with 42mm staples. I played one recently, A-MA-ZING ease and pitch.

There you go, no one is right or wrong, if it's beautiful oboe playing at the end!

Howard

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