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Re:

Author: HautboisJJ
Date: 2010-01-02 13:47

It's hard to say without seeing you play or look at your reeds (and oboe!) but often the problem is the other way round. You might be used to reeds being extremely open at the beginning after it has been soaked (for a small period of time i hope and only at the very tip without reaching the wire i hope if there is one) and you learn how to play on them as they are. What i have learned over the years, at least with most short scrape reeds, is that you have to let the reed sit/settle to a comfortable opening before you start playing them.

How to do that then? Soak the reed for roughly a minute. Take it out of the water, blow the water out, leave the reed to dry a bit. Look at the opening. It takes some years to figure out what is the ideal opening for you. Press the wire down slightly if too open. Another alternative is to pinch the opening of the reed, which is a bit dangerous, but i have never cracked a reed doing that. You just have to be careful.

The logic behind this is that you learn how to play the reed that has that ideal opening, and the reality is that reed openings often change after some time of playing and they settle to a 'certain' size and stick to that for a certain period of time before they start to close and die. So we are looking for that 'certain' size, which is more reliable because we know it will not change much after the reed is broken in (played for some time).

So, relearn to play with the correct opening and always do so. (Pumping up the air stream and not relying too much on your lips is a good thing! Although, it is impossible if the opening is too big and then you would have to resort to biting because the pitch is then too low.) Ideally your embouchure should have no air pockets when playing a good in tune forte, you will know when your embouchure is too relaxed.

The other possibility is that you are the type of player that requires reeds with big openings, and i certainly know more than a few players who are like that. If you are such a player (and you can only know after many many years of experimentation), make/buy reeds with smaller diameter say 10-10.5 and use wider shapes which in theory also gives a bigger opening. The way the reed is scraped also determines the opening....bla bla bla....all the best and hope this helps.

Regards,
Howard

Post Edited (2010-01-02 13:54)

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