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Re: Gouged, shaped and folded.

Author: cjwright
Date: 2006-02-07 11:34

I believe we are in agreement. As I mentioned, the size of the opening will depend upon the thickness of the sides. This is true, but also it does depend upon the thickness of the center as well.

The opening also depends upon your type of embouchure as well as thickness of lips, blowing, and scrape. I can't bite hardly at all, so I therefore use more narrow reeds with smaller openings, and use my lower lip to slide the reed in and out for pitch control.

While your theory regarding scraping down to the softer part of the cane is true, there is still the matter that it is extremely/if not impossible to scrape a thicker gouge down to the thickness which I can control. I find anything less than .47 on the sides leaks, or is too flat in the upper register, so I therefore must balance my opening size with the middle gouge as well. Also, you mentioned thick but "inert" rails, which is precisely my point. Leaving too thick a rails simply adds too much resistance for what I look for, and keeps the opening too wide.

The last note I should probably make is that I learned from Jan Eberle, John Mack, and Joe Robinson that every day, I should take 5 pieces of ungouged cane (pregouged and cut to length only) and make 5 reeds (minimum), from scratch to full reed. The reed itself should take me no longer than 10-15 minutes to make (Mr. Robinson made his in 8-10, as did Mr. Mack) and I should play on the five reeds for that day. That way, I never had to wake up every morning and "wonder how my reeds would react", since every day the humidity changes, the weather changes, as well as several other factors. This theory goes along with my previous long post regarding keeping as many factors stable and consistent. If the reed itself is gouged too thick, I simply didn't want to spend 30 minutes per reed trying to take off as much cane as you suggest.

I suppose the bottom line is whatever works for you is fine. I've studied with a lot of brilliant oboe minds, and this is just the consensus of my studies. I'm glad you have a system that works for you.

Blog, An Oboe In Paradise
Solo Oboe, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra

Post Edited (2006-02-07 11:47)

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Gouged, shaped and folded. new

mschmidt

2006-01-31 18:59