Author: mschmidt
Date: 2007-05-08 04:43
Craig Matovich wrote:
> Any thoughts on this?
>
You don't want to know....
I try and keep my trap shut (or my fingers still) on a lot of these discussions, but to be honest, a lot of time I'm thinking "these guys are nuts."* Maybe it's because I'm not a professional oboist, and don't spend nearly as much time thinking about reeds. Perhaps my amateur playing is not sensitive enough to pick up these minute differences, but the freshman physics part of my brain is often saying "no way!"
(*I don't mean to imply that you suffer from mental illness; I merely say "you're nuts" in the affectionate, kidding sort of way that you might say "you're nuts" to the friend who just announced that he intends to ski down a mountain while standing on a Lorée case.)
Example--once the reed is tied, the tension on the thread is no longer directional. In fact, I would venture to argue that once a complete loop of thread is wound around the reed, the tension on the thread isn't directional. It's just pushing the reed onto the staple. So it really shouldn't matter whether the blades are slipped to the left or right and whether the thread is wound clockwise or counterclockwise.
I also don't see how twisting the reed in the embouchre would result in closing when it's twisted one way or open when it's twisted the other. Maybe you can get that effect with your fingers if you apply pressure only on certain parts of the reed, but your lips aren't going to be able to apply pressure in nearly as localized a way, as long as they're still providing an airtight seal with the reed when the air in your mouth is at playing pressure. When I tried my fingers on a reed just now, I wasn't able to get the effect described unless I ONLY applied pressure to the very edge of the blades. Any attempt to make an embouchre-like distribution of flesh about the reed resulted in closing forces no matter which way I twisted the reed.
Certainly we would like to control all the variables we can control, but I don't think it's productive to spend a lot of time worrying about details that don't matter. Of course, I'm sure a lot of folks will reply that, in their experience, it does matter, but unless you present a lot of objective data on a lot of reeds, I'm going to be a hard person to convince.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
Post Edited (2007-05-08 04:51)
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