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Author: claire70
Date: 2012-02-19 20:09
Okay, this might sound like a stupid question but I'm hoping someone out there can recognise what I'm saying!
I've been making reeds for around 2 years now - although not that assiduously, maybe 2 or 3 per month. I buy the cane ready gouged and shaped, and start from the tying on stage. It used to be when I started, that I felt like I had to scrape for AGES before it got to a stage where I could comfortably blow. So although that was a bit annoying because it took so long, it felt like I had a lot of control over the 'fine tuning'. But recently, all the reeds I make seem to go from 'definitely not there yet' stage to 'too soft' really quickly, yet at the same time as being too soft they are also uncontrollable, a bit wild and often stuffy, and generally not vibrating nicely. Does that make any sense?! So I feel like there is not enough resistance there, but at the same time it's not playing *right* so I'm chipping away doing a scrape here and a scrape there to try and improve it, and thereby ending up with even less resistance. At the end of it I might end up with a reed that plays vaguely okay, but which is too soft for me, so goes in the bin quite quickly.
I'm baffled about this. I thought at first it was maybe a few duff reeds but it's happening with almost every one now. I've actually moved from cane gouged at 'medium' (58-60) to cane gouged at 'hard' (60-62) and if anything it seems to have made the problem worse. The logical answer that presents itself to me is that my embouchure has got 'tougher', but I'm sure that's not the case as I played a lot less for about 6 months of 2011 due to family circumstances and have only been playing more regularly since about last September.
Can anyone shed any light? I'm trying to scrape a German-ish scrape, modelled on Ke-Xun Ge's reeds, if that helps anything.
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2012-02-19 23:18
Claire,
I don't make short scraped reeds so I don't know if this will help. it sounds as though you are taking wood off the "wrong" places .. and the reed is not balanced.
Without a back light picture it would be hard to diagnose the problem.
Maybe some of the European players can provide more assistance.
Mark
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2012-02-20 00:11
1. if you have a reed-making teacher or someone nearby who makes reeds and can perhaps 'evaluate' yours, that would help.
2. have you changed anything lately, the knife, how often you sharpen, how much pressure you put when shaving the reed, etc.? I'm thinking that perhaps with your growing confidence you may have begun 'bearing down' a bit more with the knife, but that's a wild guess. Maybe your tying-on has gotten tighter, with the result that the blades are closer together...
3. Are you getting cane from a different supplier? Both the cane thickness and density come into play.
If it's any comfort to you, I go through different phases when reed-making too. And I've been at it for decades.
Mark is right: if you could attach a photo of the reed back-lit, some short-scraper out there might say AHAA! and fix your little problem right away.
Let us know how the story ends!
GoodWinds
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Author: WoodwindOz
Date: 2012-02-20 04:24
Claire, I had the same problem until I found this link...
http://www.openacademy.info/page18.html
This ensures you scrape the body ('heart') of the reed last. The main idea of this method is to get some sound (not necessarily good sound, but any sound) from merely scraping the tip and the sides. If you take off too much body just to get the reed to vibrate, it will be very bright and wild. I found I needed to take much more off the sides that I was, and also more from the bottom of the 'U' (especially the sides of the bottom of the U, if that makes sense!)
Keeping a crescent shape just below the tip will keep the sound darker as well.
I used to play K.Ge myself, but have found this method so foolproof in such a short period of time that after two months, I exclusively play on my own reeds. It works particularly well with K.Ge cane (I get the 'D' shaped dry - the narrower shape helps stabilise the higher notes).
Good luck! I hope this works as well for you as it has for me!
Rachel
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2012-02-20 05:09
what a nice resource! I'm gonna hafta play around with some shorter scrapes, just to see what happens...
Thanks!
GoodWinds
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Author: claire70
Date: 2012-02-20 06:47
Thanks for the hints. I'll definitely go and read that page, Rachel. The weird thing is, I am already really trying not to take much from the heart, and have always tried to do that - so just because I've been doing it longer, that should mean I'm getting *better* at it, not worse!! Maybe Goodwinds is right that my knife control is getting a bit lax... I'll see if I can engineer a back-lit photo later today.
I haven't changed anything like knife, kind of cane, supplier etc. That's why it's so baffling. I've been trying to make more reeds recently to get better at it, but they are some of the worse I've ever made!
Glad to hear that some of you have 'phases' of bad reed-making too, that makes me feel better. (Not that that helps when one has to play in public with 15 duff reeds in one's case...)
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Author: jhoyla
Date: 2012-02-20 13:32
If it is any consolation, I also have bad patches - sometimes, even bad "eras".
Try lengthening your tip - that is, from the inverted half-moon to the tip opening. You will need to re-balance after this, but it is a sure-fire way to get things vibrating again. A "tell" that this is necessary would be if you clipped a hair from the tip, only to discover you've made the reed much stuffier.
Also, check that you haven't inadvertently left thick sides to the tip, or a tiny ridge on the extreme tip. This can happen if you try scraping the tip using a convex plaque or if you are wary of hitting the plaque with your carefully-sharpened knife.. A flat plaque will keep you honest.
J.
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Author: cjwright
Date: 2012-02-21 00:42
I'm just coming out of a bad spell, which has lasted since December. Sometimes it takes just one piece of advice. In this case, Martin told me, "Let's try for a bigger opening. More rail, more out of the heart." Voila! Great reeds for the first time in months. I only wish I weren't sending them all off.
Blog, An Oboe In Paradise
Solo Oboe, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2012-02-26 02:15
sometimes it's just a teensy-weensy adjustment that we need.
GoodWinds
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