Author: oboeblank
Date: 2006-09-09 15:46
The baroque oboe is considerably larger in overall dimensions than the modern oboe; the bore is much wider usually 1.5 to 2 mm. and the pitch is lower usually one half tone or more. To accommodate this bore, the staple and reed must be proportionally wider. A wide reed tends to play low notes more easily, helps the response of the cross fingered notes like the b-flat, g# and f#, causes less squeaking, and has a generally rounder and sweeter tone. Beyond a width of 10 mm., however, the high notes stop responding.
As mentioned before, for the sake of tone quality and easy response of cross-fingerings, it helps to use a reed of 9-10 mm. tip width. For the same reasons, the width of the bottom part of the cane, the 'throat', should also be as wide as possible. One must experiment with shaping by hand until a usable shape is found.
The simple answer to why the reed changed was that the instrument changed. We no longer used cross-fingerings on the modern oboe, thanks to the venting system, which means that there is greater stabiliy in the scale, and as the orchestra grew in size and decibel output the instrument had to change.
Early accounts of Handel operas list as many as ten [10] oboe players in the pit. Imagine ten oboe players for an opera today! The Baroque oboe had a very limited decibel output, long, narrow tone holes, a wider bore and softer woods used for the instrument. All of those things have been changed on our modern oboes, and if we used the same wide reeds, well we would be as flat as a pancake.
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