Author: Dutchy
Date: 2008-03-07 13:47
Check your public library's CD collection, too. Ask the Reference Librarian for help.
Quote:
i aready have a combination of reeds useless at the time of purchase, some to hard some to soft... i kept them anyway cause they sometimes tend to become better or worse
Yes, you always keep reeds--but it's not that the reed changes, it's that your embouchure changes, over time. Time and again I've gone back to reeds that I couldn't play on six months ago and have found them working, and conversely I have had reeds that were working fine all of a sudden quit working. It's not the reed, it's the embouchure. Having a bad day? Try a different reed.
Which means that you really need to have more than three currently-active reeds in your collection. Seriously. I have bad weeks when I just can't play on the Fox reeds, so I haul out the Goodtoneguild reeds or Coop's reeds or some of the others in my collection. And vice versa. They come and they go.
On the question of loudness, remember that the oboe isn't intrinsically a "loud" instrument. If the reason you're trying to play louder is that you feel you're being drowned out by the brass, well, frankly, you are, and there's very little you can do about it, even up at the higher, shriller octave.
However, you can console yourself with the fact that nearly always the composer intended it to be that way: the oboe, when it isn't scored as a solo, is usually just part of the Woodwinds with a capital W, and you're actually being drowned out by the six flutes and eight clarinets. The fifteen of you are working together to give the composer the "Woodwinds" sound he wants.
But you *are* adding a needed nasal edge, a little "bite", to the Woodwinds tone, and that's the important thing. It's all about ensemble playing, like singing in a quartet. You have to be content with doing your bit to contribute to the whole, not as a soloist.
So don't bust a gut, or destroy your tone and turn yourself into a honking New Year's horn, by trying to play "loud". Just focus on sounding nice.
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