Author: jhoyla
Date: 2007-09-11 13:27
I keep the half-hole screwed down almost completely. When I raise my finger it goes up a tiny fraction, but it is difficult to put a cigarette-paper feeler into the space thus formed. Raising my finger for 1st octave during fast passages works, but I roll for better sound quality and intonation at normal speeds. I raise my finger for Altissimo register, and the extra bit of venting lets the notes speak a little more easily.
When I got my new Loree a year ago, I noticed that there was a diamond-shaped aperture on the LH 1st finger key. Strange, I thought, since on my 30-yr old old Marigaux Strasser it was just a round hole.
I had long been in the habit of half-hole-ing less for C# than for other notes, simply because is sounded less "breathy" that way. Maybe this will fix it, thought I.
Not clever enough to think of wax, I took the key off, and pressed a sliver of cork into the back of the round hole in the cork, turning the hole into a vertical slit.
Wonderful. It works beautifully!
Having a brand-new well-adjusted oboe with which to compare, I was able to make some other small-but-telling adjustments to my Marigaux, which is now playing better than it has in years.
J.
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