Author: Dutchy
Date: 2012-01-26 13:36
The thing you have to understand about wooden oboes is...they crack. Even experienced professional oboists who know how to prevent cracks have had a beloved oboe crack. Sometimes it's just going to crack and there's nothing you can do about it.
So if your daughter's oboe does crack, I want you to be sure you don't blame her, or anything she, or you, might have done differently.
Trying to keep the oboe in higher ambient humidity when it's not in use might help a little, but my understanding of the physics behind cracking is that it's not so much the lack of humidity, as it is a *change* in humidity AND in temperature that causes cracking. A common situation is when you take it from a warm, most car into a cold, dry performance hall. An oboe's top joint bore is so much narrower in diameter than, say, a clarinet, that the wood just can't take the stresses involved in flexing back and forth between "warm/moist" and "cold/dry", and it cracks.
So keeping the oboe in the bathroom might help, but it's not going to be a guarantee against cracking, since sooner or later she's going to have to take it out of the warm, moist bathroom into a cold, dry performance venue, even if it's just to school.
Most oboists are passionately protective about their top joint; generally if you know you're going to be in a place with wide swings in humidity AND temperature, you keep your top joint tucked into your armpit when possible. People also literally bundle up their oboe case in layers of blankets and styrofoam coolers and suchlike, if they're going outside into frigid temperatures, to keep the oboe at the room temperature it left behind.
So it's "change" she needs to be wary of, mainly.
Also please note that a crack is not necessarily a death sentence; there are many fine oboes out there that have been pinned, even multiple times.
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