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Re: Grain direction in reed cane

Author: d-oboe
Date: 2006-07-28 22:45

Not really - the gouge (the machine that takes the "guts" out of the inside of the cane) is setup in a way to make the two blades of the reed extremely similar. As long as the diameter of the cane is consistent, and there is no warping, twisting, buckling, and that the cane is not mushy, the quality of the gouge directly determines the quality of the reed.

As far as grain up and grain down...I'm not sure if there's a good way to tell unless you were the one who actually harvested the cane, and you held it the right way the entire time it was aging. The tubes of cane come all jumbled up when one orders cane anyways...so I'd really presume it doesn't matter.

The 'long and short' of it...when we clip the reed so that the tip isn't flush, but so that one blade is a teeny bit shorter than the other...the point is to conform the reed to the shape of the mouth, and the angle at which the oboe is held from the mouth. The typical 45 degree angle would present a problem for same-length blades, as the tongue would hit the tip of the bottom blade before it hit the tip of the top blade. Slightly offsetting so that the top blade is slightly longer than the lower blade means that the tongue will hit both blades *at the same time*. Result? Cleaner articulation, and less octave cracks. If this offset is incorporated from the first clip, then there shouldn't be any resistance problems.

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