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Re: Dark reeds?

Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-11-30 18:29

"I don't think it's as subjective as you make it out to be. If you asked ten trained oboists to listen to various players and plot them on a spectrum from bright to dark, my guess is you'd get an overwhelming statistical fit"

My point is not really how we perceive sound - i can honestly say that I have and still do categorize players with respect to their various timbres of sound.

My point is, however, to say that for a learning oboist (indeed we are all learning oboists, and it never stops) to pursue something as vague as a specific timbre is really pointless. For many oboists that I talk to, the only thing they can say about a specific oboe player is "ooohhh what a nice tone s/he has"
I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I have heard a colleague (except my oboe teachers) say ANYTHING about how well a particular musician phrases something so well, or how they captured xyz nuance perfectly.
So my point about the whole dark reeds thing...if an oboist's sole intention in performing is to "get a dark sound like Mr. X, or get a bright sound like Mr. Y" they are wasting enormous amounts of energy searching for something that will probably never come!
My teacher always talks about capturing the "character" (he means the french "caractère"..so.. temperament) of the music. So the reed must be built to allow us to find, experiment, and then DO that. Once all the nuances have been perfected, tone isn't even an issue anymore because the music is actually there.

So my plea is - stop worrying about tone y'all and just find the music!

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Dark reeds? new

d-oboe

2007-11-29 12:16