Author: mschmidt
Date: 2006-02-24 15:55
Science cannot yet adequately account for all the variations in tone and timbre of oboes. But...it is pretty well established that for an instrument like the oboe, vibration of the instrument itself is not important. The "body modes" of an oboe are so high in energy, and therefore so high in frequency, as to be inaudible to humans. Maybe these modes drain off some energy in some overtones, and so affect the timbre somewhat, but as someone has said above, material makes much less difference than bore. The oboe is NOT a violin; in violins, the body is meant to vibrate, and the vibrational modes of the thin and broad body are well within human hearing.
Now, there is the issue of damping of the air modes in an oboe, and that may be affected by the roughness of the wood surface, which may be affected by the porosity of the plastic or wood that it is made of. To a scientist, that is a somewhat more plausible than vibration of the instrument itself.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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The Oboe BBoard
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