 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: WoodwindOz
Date: 2015-08-16 11:46
It's certainly an interesting discussion Robin, and a topic I've pondered since my time in the US coincided with the period in my life where I decided to start making reeds as a 'short scrape' player. There are definitely influences from American scrape reedmaking that hang over into my current style, and I played around with different methods of retaining a noticeable heart (or not) within a shorter scrape before coming to rest with what I guess is a fairly typical graduated French scrape.
Funny enough, I have begun experimenting with a W scrape as opposed to a U scrape, though this often happens to reeds I feel have just not been scraped long enough, and I lengthen them by adding a W. My current favourite reeds are W scrapes, albeit short ones (about 12mm). I find by retaining just that small amount of spine at the base of my scrape, I am able to project over an orchestra with a little more ease (which is valuable in this time of having my lung capacity and diaphragm taken over by a growing human).
I have never believed in 'the perfect scrape' and always detested the short vs long scrape debates that happened when I was first learning to make reeds. If it works for you and your playing style, and you can do it consistently, then it is the right scrape.
Rachel
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