Author: jhoyla
Date: 2009-11-18 15:01
Well, three failures and one success, so far.
Two of the failures split on me during scraping. Note to self - remove ALL the bark and soak thoroughly before trying to scrape the tip! I generally work from the tip backwards (as per the Weber book), so this is a departure from the norm for me.
The successful reed sounds lovely but has difficulty keeping up to pitch, especially the 2nd octave key notes - A-C above the stave. My wonderful retired pro reminded me that the gouged-and-shaped I have is much wider than her shape. Consequently, I'll probably have to shorten the reed overall if I want it up to pitch.
Two bocals came with the horn - I think a Loree #1 and #2. The #1 is more in tune with my homemade reed, the #2 is more in tune with my pro reeds. Go figure. My reed has difficulty with half-hole notes, sometimes making them sound an octave lower! I guess EHs don't need to seal for 30 seconds, then.
An interesting side-benefit is that I have played a thumbplate system all my life - even though my oboe is a dual system, I have stayed with the old thumbplate habit. The EH does not have a thumbplate, so I am forced to use the conservatoire fingerings for Bb and C. And, finally after 35 years, I am getting used to it...
I find that the different spread of fingers makes me hit G# together with G with my 4th finger, when I transition back to Oboe. I wish there were a plate over the ring-finger key to prevent that!
J.
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