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Re: The heart

Author: hautbois
Date: 2007-08-16 22:34

Hi Craig -- I have a hard time finding a description of the shape of the hearts of my reeds, but they are not dissimilar from the reeds illustrated with backlighting for John Mack and Peter Bowman in David Ledet's "Oboe Reed Styles" book (which I recommend to anyone who can get their hands on it). My sound is not particularly like either player's, but this one feature is similar. When I sometimes add the scrapes near the spine at the bottom of the heart, there is an additional bit of difference from the illustrations.

And, vboboe, I think that having a thinner side to the heart does not mean eliminating the bark rails along the side of the reed. Mine, in fact, extend to the tip. But in my reeds the heart is thinner right next to the rail. The outside rails seem to me to be necessary for stability. They are very narrow, however, with increasing narrowness as the tip is approached.

You mention that you are experimenting with a longer reed (the cane blade part) to lower the pitch. Two things -- often reeds which seem sharp are reeds which are actually flat but which are unconsciously bitten too hard by the embouchure. You can eliminate that possibility if you can play the reed on the oboe going sidewise out of your mouth (like a flute), thus eliminating any possible effects of a too-tight embouchure; and if the pitch is still too high, then I would suggest trying a longer staple as possibly preferrable to tying a longer blade, as the control and size of opening might be more difficult to manage on the longer blade.

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