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Re: just let go . . .

Author: oboedrew
Date: 2009-10-27 18:22

mschmidt wrote:

> I think it's that the upper blade of the reed is typically
> less damped by the upper lip than the lower blade of the
> reed is damped by the lower lip. This would especially be
> true with the American habit of holding the oboe lower.
> So the upper blade is always doing more than half of the
> vibrating. When the upper blade is longer, the blade
> that's doing the vibrating has a longer tip.

But because of the reed's angle of entry to the mouth, different parts of the top and bottom blades make contact with the embouchure. I rest the reed on my lower lip when forming my embouchure, as is the norm here in the US. I place the reed into my mouth with the heart centered on my lower lip. When I close my embouchure around it, only the tip protrudes into the mouth. When the oboe is tilted downward at its normal playing angle, the top lip presses more against the heart and tip, and the bottom lip presses more against the heart and back. So the tip of the top blade and the back of the bottom blade are more restrained by the embouchure than the tip of the bottom blade or the back of the top blade. And less tip protrudes past the top lip than past the bottom lip. This is all fairly standard with American oboists I've observed, though I'm sure there are exceptions. So perhaps the tip of the bottom blade doesn't need to be quite as long because the embouchure allows it to vibrate more freely. But if that's the case, it would make just as much sense to make the bottom blade slightly thinner than the top blade, but equal in length.

Another possibility: if the lips and tongue and such do "funnel" air into the reed, then something like a linear airstream would begin just outside of the reed, and clipping the bottom blade slightly shorter would reduce (though perhaps not entirely eliminate, depending on the angle) a hurdle to that airstream, as illustrated in our other thread.

The pondering continues...

Cheers,
Drew

www.oboedrew.com

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just let go . . . new

oboeobo

2009-10-22 23:33