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Re: History of the oboe reed?

Author: oboeblank
Date: 2006-09-10 07:09

There was no such thing as a "standard" A in Baroque times. Nowadays, Baroque pitch is A=415, which is a half tone lower and French Baroque pitch is A=392, a full tone lower. However, oboes that were used in different regions of Germany were higher in pitch and the variation between court orchestras was at times severe. Even between two towns the pitch level could be different. Mozart orchestras, and Classical pitch is now set at A=420, which is in a bizarre limbo land of pitch.

Baroque reeds are not hard. They are surprisingly easy and the opening is very small. If you use a small diameter of cane you will have reeds with huge openings which would make them impossible to play. The scraped area of a Baroque oboe reed is actually very small, very similar to the classic french oboe reed-a thin tip, scraped in a shallow U pattern which is realtively thin almost everywhere. Even American Baroque oboists use this scrape.

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