Author: d-oboe
Date: 2006-07-29 13:20
Ohsuzan -
Initially I didn't agree with the physiological/human aspect of why the reeds feel different, either. I mean I thought it couldn't be possible! After spending years of working, and being incredibly FRUSTRATED making reeds, there was just NO WAY that the weather was affecting me *more than* the reeds.
However, it is really unfortunately, and pretty well biologically true. The thing is: humans are made up of a good deal of water, which is constantly being lost by evaporation (even when you're just sitting there!) In comfortable "unsweaty" conditions this is usally just water with a teeny bit of salt, but in hot humid conditions the body puts in a lot of salt (to lower the evaporation point of sweat, to improve cooling). Despite what we may or may not feel, on the small scale, this creates big changes within our body, and our body adjusts accordingly, to try to achieve a balance.
Reeds on the other hand are made up of metal (silver,brass,nickel etc), rubber or cork, thread. These materials (except maybe the cork) are generally unchanging, and don't affect the reed on a daily basis. The only "live and breathing" part on a reed is of course the cane. However, by the time you are actually playing a reed, the water content has dropped quite significantly from when it was a plant in the ground. The net percentage of total water in a reed is, by weight, about 25-35% I'd guess. Humans are 72% percent water. It's all about the water...it's either, absorbed or evaporated!
My POINT (after all this you'd hope there would be one!!): us human oboe players (even though our conductors don't treat us as humans) are obviously always changing to our climate. So do our reeds. BUT....we adjust MORE THAN do our reeds.
D
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