Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-08-16 19:16
There are a few areas that can help increase the vibration while maintaining stability(or at least keeping it withing correctable limits). Listed in order of operation:
-end of tip, sides of tip
-integration (blend) between tip and heart
-sides of heart (railings)
Personally, I also use a "double" tip. Given a 71mm reed, the heart will be from 61-67mm, the first tip from 67-70mm, and the second tip from 70-71mm. The second tip acts as the "spark plug" to get the vibrations going, while the first tip directs the vibrations to the heart.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it's the heart that does the vibrating. The tip area leads the vibration to the heart, the back directs the vibrations down through the rest of the reed, and into the oboe. So, if it's too thin, or unsubstantial, it can actually decrease vibration (because of the amount of definition and clipping you will have to do to make it stable enough to play)
The tip area...it has to be balanced in a way that the vibrations are directed through to the heart. If you keep that in mind, the reed will vibrate more. If it's too thick, the vibrations can't "climb the hill" into the heart. If it's too thin, the tip just collapses and the vibrations don't go anywhere.
The double tip I mentioned before works to help alleviate those problems. On my reeds, the overall tip area is actually quite long (from 67-71), so it makes the reed more vibrant, and allows the heart to be thicker, and more substantial. However, instead of making the tip thin throughout (some people do this to their reeds) I only make it moderately thin, and leave extreme thinness to the very end of the tip. I heard a teacher call this "stair stepping" - a neat term.
The heart... personally I take the bark off the side of the heart. It doesn't serve the same function as the bark in the back area (which is to direct the vibrations down and through the reed, as mentioned above). The heart has to vibrate, and in order to do so, that bark has to go. In addition to the bark being taken off, the sides the heart should be the thinnest part of the heart. In other words, you are following the natural shape of the gouge (thicker in the middle, thinner on the sides). Now I don't mean paper thin - but just thinner in relation to the middle, which should be the thickest point.
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