 The Fingering Forum
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2003-12-08 04:58
So far I've been using the standard scrape (I think?) of an oboe reed, in which the blend makes a half-moon shape when backlit, and the back is thinnest slightly below the heart and blends thicker in progressing nearer the string.
Let's hear your scrape types, and what you've found works best, or any tips you have in reed making.
D-oboe
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Author: TorusTubarius
Date: 2003-12-11 22:52
The scrape you're describing sounds like the typical Philadelphia style American scrape. Mine pretty much look the same, except that my blend looks more like a housetop than a half-moon, with the angle somewhere around 5-10 degrees away from what would be perpendicular with the direction of the scrape. There are several things that I have been taught which help make a good reed.
Probably one of the most important is the shape of the blend itself. It's really sort of hard to describe just through text, but I'll try anyway. The blend is essentially a thinning point between the heart and the tip. As you move towards the sides of the reed, this area gets steeper and steeper until at the very edge of the reed, it looks almost like a vertical drop-off between the very thin sides of the tip and the very thick sides of the heart. As you move towards the middle of the reed, the steepness of the blend area lessens. This is a result of a) more scraping in the blend and b) the increasing thickness of the tip as you move towards the middle and back. This will of course vary from reed to reed and reedmaker to reedmaker, but that is the general scheme one should follow.
Another important point to remember is that the sides and the extreme corners of the tip should be the thinnest parts of the reed. The aforementioned contrast between the thick heart, steep blend, and the thin tip at the very sides of the the reed help to enhance this effect. It is here where the reed does its part in allowing the production of a focused, resonant tone as opposed to a tone with too many overtones. It makes sense if you consider how this is going to affect the vibrations of the reed. Taking a lot of cane out of the sides of the tip and having an extreme contrast between the tip and the heart on the sides is going to deaden any vibrations that the sides of the tip might produce and contribute to the overall crow of the reed. This is a good thing because that is where a lot of the nasty overtones are going to be produced. Taking cane out from the sides of the tip therefore removes those overtones and serves to stabilize and direct all the vibration from the rest of the tip down through the middle of the reed along the spine. <i>That</i> is where you get resonance and a deep, rich sound, not to mention pitch stability.
The tip is by far the hardest part of the reed to get right, however another thing I've found that seems to help as far as resonance is concerned is at the area where the back joins the heart. If you scrape so that instead of a perpendicular line that runs straight across at the joint, you get two lines that run at an angle up towards the tip from the middle to the sides of the reed, that seems to improve the resonance as well. The angle should be very slight, no more than 5 degrees or so. This combined with the angle of the blend gives all my reeds a slightly hexagonally-shaped heart.
Anyway, that's about all I know right now. I hate reeds, but they are a necessary evil.
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2003-12-12 03:23
Thanks for the info-I had a colleague show me one of her reeds that her teacher showed her how to make...and it was essentially a tip with a solid back all the way down. I couldn't distinguish between the back and the heart. I've heard this is an Asian scrape? The produces a very bright sound, anyways.
D-oboe
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Author: Thatoboekid
Date: 2003-12-12 20:39
Whoa...So Torus, you're joint is kinda like an inverted tip shape, but of course much less severe?
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Author: TorusTubarius
Date: 2003-12-13 06:16
Yeah, but that's only the angle of the line. The actual blending between the back and heart is really nothing like the blend between the heart and the tip. The blend area between the heart and tip has to be made very carefully since it has such a notable effect on the vibration of the entire reed. The scrape between the heart and the back doesn't have to be nearly as precise. When I make it I just loosely try and angle my knife up ever so slightly as I scrape the windows to create the angle I was talking about. It's really not something that makes <i>all that much</i> difference, but I try and do it anyway, and my reeds usually end up looking like what I described.
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