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Re: ideal sound

Author: cjwright
Date: 2008-10-13 06:37

Again... this concept of ideal sound is so subjective that I can't help but wonder if you'll ever find the "right answer" for you from someone else.

I'm still not sure what your ideal sound is, a whatever your ideal sound is it surely isn't the same as the other 10 people who have posted. In Laila Storch's book, it is stated that Tabuteau used to think of the upper register notes as a cloud of smoke that must go up... uP... UP!!! de Lancie followed in this tradition, with the idea that his high notes are very thin and translucent (i.e. the Easter Oratorio sinfonia). Mack always thought de Lancie's tips were too thin and therefore made his upper register too thin.

What advice I can give you is this.

If you want a more focused upper register tone:
1. narrower shapes. This will bring the upper reg notes into pitch more, but make the tone color lighter (but not necessarily SHRILL or bright!)
2. Make the angle of your knife less, so that the integration line is closer to 40-20 degrees.
3. smaller diameter staples. Staples with a smaller diameter like Rigotti, Pisoni, or Weber make the upper a TAD flatter, but can give a more focused tone (NOTE: different staples go better with different models, so depending on which oboe, one of those should work better than the others.)

If you want a rounder upper register tone:
1. Wider shapes. You must make sure your gouge will support the wider sides however. (RDG usually has thinner, Ross gouge has thicker, etc.)
2. More angle to the knife to leave the center of the tip thicker
3. Bigger diameter staples like a Chudnow, Stevens Pro, etc.

Finally, a while back I drew a picture for my blog to illustrate a shift in my reed scraping pattern. The diagram on the left would give a more focused upper register, while the diagram on the right would give a more round tone.

Blog, An Oboe In Paradise
Solo Oboe, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra

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ideal sound new

jrestes

2008-10-07 21:29