 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2014-01-22 00:51
Hi,
Another question. I am currently experimenting a bit with my reeds.
My tips are shorter and I take more cane from the heart, blend and sides.
The windows/spine overall length and tie are about the same as before.
This is my experience so far with a new approach.
I have all good things: round warm tone, great pitch stability, core projection, less spread etc ... except I have less "flexibility".
It is quite noticeable when playing quick staccato passage which require a bit of finesse.
And the reeds require more stamina to play.
Suggestions to increase flexibility without losing the above qualities?
Thanks
Mark
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Author: Oboelips
Date: 2014-01-22 23:30
I have found that you lose some flexibility when you shorten the tip. I do use short tips as I favor a darker sound. But, for something like Rossini, with fast articulation, I have to go to a tip that isn't really a short tip. I suppose it's medium for some, but long for me. I always think that the sound suffers for it, but ??
In playing a shorter tip, you will really have to get control of your air. And no, it isn't easy, and certainly not "efficient". My teacher always said that if you didn't work up a good sweat playing, you weren't doing it right. (He plays hard, open reeds with short tips, but I've never ever heard a more gorgeous sound than he gets). Be sure you have a good concept of what you want your sound to be, and aim for that.
If you gradually work up to the shorter tip, you'll learn to deal with it without realizing it. The quick staccatos? (I really dislike those passages--what are they really good for? ) You will likely need to have a tip that is a wee bit longer.
Good luck, and keep experimenting!
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Author: JRC
Date: 2014-01-23 00:18
I wonder if that was how Harold Gomberg got his tone, and of course, red face when made sound on an oboe... Just wondering...
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Author: Oboelips
Date: 2014-01-23 18:29
I know that it is part of it...my teacher studied under Harold Gomberg at the Manhattan School of Music back in the '60s. And, I suspect that is where the short tips come from, and using windowless reeds, and the control of air.
Everyone has their own concept of how they want to sound in their head. And this is what allows me to "get close" to my idea of a great oboe sound. Only occasionally do I get to listen to myself and say "that's it!", but those times are worth the work.
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2014-01-24 02:23
I play a much shorter tip than I did back in the red-faced, too much back pressure and biting required early years.
I find the advice in David Weber's Reed Making manual suits my reeds very well in getting more responsiveness. Thin the extreme tip very thin. And dust' a little cane off the blend area into the heart, left center and right. It is almost not possible to exaggerate how little the amount off cane removed is needed to be useful here.
For finishing a reed, so little is removed it does not usually flatten the reed. But if it does, trim almost nothing off the extreme tip and thin it again.
Wet silicone paper is good if you struggle tearing the tips with a knife, but for some reason, results tend to improve with the knife technique.
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2014-01-27 18:39
So I scraped 5 reeds this week and I left them in various states of completion; although they all are playable.
Today I had my lesson and I devoted most of the time to go over each of the reeds with my teacher
The major question: How to maintain a core warm tone with flexibility.
Well two observations:
The first is that my reeds made from softer cane just could not do the job.
The second is that I needed to scrape more wood from the reeds: thinner tip-tips, more from the heart and sides, and from the back windows. The reeds I made didn't have enough low vibrations in the crow.
The softer cane did not work because it could not maintain a firm reed as I scraped off the cane. The cane was too weak.
So now I have a few very good reeds and 1 excellent reed.
So it seems you have to take off lots of wood but must have a cane that is able to support a finely scraped reed. And of course you must have a good balance among all the scraped areas.
I would like to attach a pic; however, the bulletin board prevented me from doing so.
Mark
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2014-01-27 23:59
Attachment: reed.bmp (39k)
Here's the picture of one of the reeds. This is a quite good one. Warm with a core tone and flexibility. I still might take off a touch of wood from the spine to free it up a bit more.
Mark
Post Edited (2014-01-27 19:03)
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2014-01-27 23:54
I would call that a very short tip, but have had some very good reeds built that way depending on the cane.
The original question was about flexibility and in my experience a reed with your dimensions could be very stable, have a great tone, but perhaps you'd like more responsiveness.
I'd scrape a little more out of the blend to do that. Basically blend the tip into the heart over another mm or 1.5 mm.
If pitch flexibility is part of the question, that should help there as well.
I don't mean so flexible you can accommodate people playing 1/4 tone sharp or flat. But rather, to adjust a few thirds or 7ths to a little purer than equal temperament tuning or fix a unison a few cents worth here and there.
Nice looking reed, though. I wonder if BBOARD allows sound files as well as pics, perhaps mp3s?
Craig
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2014-01-28 06:47
Hi,
I didn't mean pitch flexibility ... but rather flexibility to create color and more responsiveness in attacks, staccato etc.
I tried to upload a sound file ... didn't work!?
Mark
Post Edited (2014-01-28 01:54)
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2014-01-29 02:43
Ok, good.
Flexible tone is a good topic and probably aligns well with the flexible articulation topics as well.
So, the reed is vibrating and just doing its thing while you blow.
Changes to tone are a function of multiple things ala embouchure, the vowel formed inside you mouth, etc.
I try to avoid vowel changes and stick with an 'Oh' very open mouth chamber and in order to keep the throat and full air column as open as possible. Anything other than an Oh' vowel closes down or chokes off the air column and robs something from the potential in the sound.
Naturally the tongue or your double-tongue method affects the length of the note provided the reed and your air column supports the life of the note.
So, the embouchure for me has the majority of control over changes in tone.
For a heavy or stuffy non-responsive reed there is not much that can be done to introduce the variety of control you seem to describe and desire.
A reed can be made to play lighter (brighter) or heavier (darker) by subtle manipulations of embouchure provided its natural place is somewhere in the middle area of the spectrum.
A couple things I do to get there are to seek a good double crow with a slight predominance of the lower c. It has to be right on a good c pitch and when I crow near the thread I do 'Tee - AH', expecting the Tee syllable to produce the upper c and the lower 'C' to drop in when the jaw drops to the 'AH' vowel position. That AH position is how I actually play while opening up the throat to an 'Oh' (slightly more open position.
I can add depth to the sound by slightly lowering the oboe in my face, or bright it by slightly raising it. In effect the higher position has less lip flesh on the reed, and filters out fewer vibrations (in turn overtones) and the tone is a little brighter.
That position can be useful for fast short note passages while playing.
In addition to lowering the oboe slightly, I angle the oboe to the right putting more lip on the reed and the extra filtering of the sound creates a thicker (or darker) sound.
Try that from the start of a passage rather than trying to move to it from another embouchure position.
Assuming the reed requires no biting, these techniques are very useful for me.
I wish I'd known them well 25 years ago. Oboe life would have been much sweeter.
So, lips are filters. If you don't know much about EQ (equalization), it is a matter of filtering to limit or increase relative energy in low - mid - high content in the sound.
It is a great metaphor for whet we are really doing with our lips when we play oboe.
A good daily exercise is to play drives. Start soft and play to loud and back to soft over 8 beats. Move it to 8 up and 8 back down as you get control. Try a slight legato tongue with each note.
Learn to consider this a requirement for the reed to pass muster. It becomes a demand. Demand it of the reed. You will be surprised how quickly this simple daily ritual starts to influence good things in your reeds as well as to benefit your control of your line while phrasing.
Whew....
Good luck with it.
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2014-01-29 21:23
To clarify something...
When I angle the oboe to the right, I mean the top, so my head leans a bit to the left for that. I am not sure about how many degrees of angle but perhaps 2 - 3 inches of movement shared by moving the top right and the bottom a bit to the left.
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Author: Wufus
Date: 2014-01-30 20:21
Craig, you must have picked-up the angling of the oboe from our mutual teacher Dick White. His teacher as you know was Robert Sprenkle who I also studied with. He taught his students to angle the oboe to facilitate tonging. He was a proponent of tonging on the edge of the reed. I believe he outlines this in his book "The Art of Oboe Playing".
Frank
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2014-01-31 04:16
Frank,
I think you are correct on both counts. Recent developments in my flute playing over the past 18 months have me pushing more lip flesh a little forward for oboe these days and adding that to what Sprenkle and Dick White taught us has it really working well for me.
I also like the angled approach for legato articulation these days.
Add the slight left-right angle to the up and down in the chops and that adds a lot of variety to explore around tone, response, etc.
Good to hear from you. I hope you and your's are well.
-Craig
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