Author: Dutchy
Date: 2005-05-26 17:23
It's doing it to me, too, and I'm quite certain it's not an adjustment problem or a leak, as my oboe just came three months ago from a reputable local dealer with a passion for making sure everything's spit-spot before handing the precious baby over the counter to the consumer.
The conclusion that I've come to is that it's an overblowing issue--I play the recorder, too, and so I'm familiar with the "blowing too hard" problem. On the recorder, you just get an upper octave squeak if you blow too hard, and after some experimenting I've realizing that overblowing the low notes (from D on down) on the oboe gives me a gurgling noise. At first I thought it was a reed issue, but it's doing it with all my reeds, which come from different manufacturers and are both medium and medium-soft.
It also just started doing it to me this week at about the same time that my embouchure was really starting to kick in, so I was starting to feel that legendary oboist suffocated "can't breathe" feeling--previously, up till this point, I couldn't keep my lips *completely* closed around the reed (my bad), so I had definite "air" helplessly squirting out around the reed, especially when I got tired. So now that I *can* completely close my lips around the reed, *now* I suddenly get gurgling on the low notes. So I think it's overblowing, too much air.
So, try blowing not-so-hard on the lower notes. It's the concentration of the airstream that counts, not the sheer force of blowing. I like the imagery that someone said here (ohsuzan?), of visualizing the air being pulled out of the bell, rather than of you huffing and puffing the air through the reed.
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