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Re: Reed Questions!?!?

Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2010-04-15 14:06

Hi Chris --

In my experience, there is no hard and fast rule about how long to play a particular reed. I have some reeds (most of them, actually) that will take just about whatever I hand them. But on occasion, there are reeds that kind of peter out after an extended playing stint, only to revive after being rested. If your reed is getting soggy or unresponsive or hard to blow, give it a rest. The only "tip" I have here is not to oversoak them in the first place. They do not need to be sodden to work. In fact, I find that they work better with just a few minutes in the water. Shake or blow the excess water out before you put the reed in the instrument.

I do rotate my reeds, and find that on any given day, one reed may work better than another reed. I have no idea why this is, but it happens. Barometric pressure?

I played from *almost* the beginning on hand-made medium-strength reeds (after a brief time using commercial machine-made reeds). And I did not ever experience much tiring of the embouchure -- I could always play as long as I wanted to. But that may be because I already had well-developed clarinet chops.

There is an enormous amount of variation in reed strength from maker to maker. One person's medium is another person's soft; some mediums are actually more like some other medium-hards. There are so many shape and gouge and scrape variations among oboe reeds, I doubt that it would be possible to standardize these designations. You just have to try a bunch and use the ones that work best for you.

The only "tip" I have here is not to use a very resistant or "heavy" reed, especially not right away. Given a competently made reed, the quality of your tone depends more on what YOU are doing rather than what strength reed you are using. Some of the best oboists I know use very light and easy reeds to produce a luxurious dark tone. You do not have to blow on popsicle sticks in order to sound good.

Best wishes,

Susan

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