Author: cjwright
Date: 2009-10-23 00:19
Yup,
I was just writing someone about this...
I have ordered reeds from a dozen reedmakers out there as "market research", and I would say 10 out of the 12 make reeds that would be considered "loose". What this means is if you put the reed in the corner of your mouth (where you have no muscle tissue to bite with) and blow without trying to make the reed sound good, the tone spreads, the pitch drops, and the reed plays really flat. These "loose" reeds require biting to get the pitch up, biting to get some of the nasty vibrations out to get a "darker" tone, and hard blowing to maintain it's stability in all ranges. Mr. Weber taught me that the reed must hold together in tone and pitch, and allow the player to pull his/her embouchure away from the reed to gain maximum resonance, rather than muscle or "cover" it into place. This is the Philadelphia school approach, and after many years of physical problems such as TMJ, I must say that I believe it is the physically less strenuous approach.
The other thing to consider is most adult part-time oboists don't have the time to practice 2 to 3 hours a day to really build up massive embouchure muscles that a lot of pros have and use to muscle the reed into place, so when they play on Philly style reeds, it's a great sight of relief because the reed has great tone built in it, and it is a lot less taxing because the reed requires a lot less embouchure manipulation. Even a non-oboe person can pick it up and blow and have decent tone because the reed holds together rather than spread and blare out.
Philly reeds do however require the wind to be more flexible than just "turbo on" and "off" for not only dynamics but color change as well.
Cooper
Blog, An Oboe In Paradise
Solo Oboe, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra
Post Edited (2009-10-23 00:20)
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