Author: Dutchy
Date: 2008-09-02 15:15
Quote:
dutchy ... i'm concerned that you're having water problems in repeat offender holes even during summer weather ? Can you figure out why that's happening?
Is your instrument plastic or wood?
It's plastic, a Fox 333. Yeah, I've been having chronic water in the second octave key all summer, MAJOR pain-in-the-butt. However, we haven't been having normal summer weather here recently; it's been unseasonably cool, lows in the 50s, so when the house cools off at night, the oboe in its case cools off too, and then when I pick it up to play in the morning, boom there goes the spit, right in the hole.
So putting the top joint under my armpit for a few minutes helps, but not completely. I even took the octave key off, thinking there might be a piece of fuzz stuck in there, poked around with a piece of 28 gauge beading wire.
And I upgraded my swabs by making for myself a thin one out of a strip of chamois, and working it back and forth, which seems to help, rather than simply pulling the silk one through a single time.
And what seems to make the most difference is that the last few days I've been propping the second octave key open in the case, to let it dry out, by putting one of those covered ponytail holder rubber band thingies around the 2nd octave key and then around the 1st octave key. It's very gently held, fairly loose, just enough to hold the key open when the lid is shut.
And then, as I said, I'm using the suck-and-blow technique more, which also helps.
And I'm trying using less spit, and not dipping the reed in water every time I take it out to rest, as I'm (thankfully) finally getting to the point where my embouchure doesn't need the reed to be at maximum wetness in order for it to sound.
So all in all, I've been tackling the problem all summer, and the problem is better, but still hasn't gone away. I still find myself, in the middle of practice, with the high A suddenly whistling its lower octave. And here's the weird thing, it's always the A where it kicks in. Once it starts doing it, if I play the G and the B using the second octave key alone, it will whistle the lower octave, but it's always on the A where it starts.
Then I can do the suck-and-blow thing and it will generally go away, unless the oboe hadn't had a chance to dry out overnight with its second octave key propped open. Then I might as well just resign myself to that second octave A whistling the lower octave during the entire practice session.
I've checked the A and the B keys, can't see that anything's caught in there, no egregious fuzz or lint, no pads out of adjustment. It sounds just fine 99% of the time, just some days I guess there's too much water in the second octave hole, and the A starts adding a whistle when you close the second octave key.
I've wondered if maybe it's something about Fox, some quirk of physics that makes it do this.
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