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Re: Embouchure

Author: jhoyla
Date: 2011-05-25 06:09

Okay, it's time to come clean; For the last couple of months I have been experimenting with short-scrape reeds [Nick Deutsch gave us Linda Walsh's DVD at a recent wind-player's association meet].

So here's the thing; I have not needed to change my embouchure AT ALL. I play with ease, close to the tip, on ALL the reeds I make, whether long or short.

Another fascinating thing I discovered; The reeds are the same. That is, if you take a long-scrape reed and telescope the scrape into about half its length and add 2-3 mm to the final length - you have a short scrape reed. Shorter tip, shorter blend, shorter heart, shorter back. But exactly the same with a spine and slightly heavier edges up to the heart (proto-rails).

There are short sections on the DVD presented by players from all over including Martin Schuring, Francois Leleux, Ugo Heng and many more. Nicholas Daniel explains how he takes a great deal of cane out of the back of his short scrape, avoiding the spine and the rails. He also makes the last 0.5 mm of the tip extremely thin (any of this sound familiar?). ".. a reed by any other scrape would play as sweet"

Here's the YMMV disclaimer; I find my reeds very easy to play but a lot of my colleagues do not - they find my reeds very resistant. Nevertheless, yesterday I managed to persuade my co-oboist (coboist?) to use one of my reeds for an entire rehearsal. He complained about the resistance but there was no arguing about the results - improved intonation, stability, coloration and tone right from the start. He didn't have any problems playing the whole rehearsal either. The Oboe is a high-pressure instrument - what's to do?

J.

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Embouchure new

mjfoboe

2011-05-24 12:57