Author: vboboe
Date: 2005-11-25 07:39
Hi, welcome!
What hardness of reed are you playing? The softer the reed the sooner they collapse, too wet to play. When any reed of any hardness closes up on you, time to rotate to another reed and air-dry the wet one. Yes, reshape it, but if too wet, no point still blowing it. Always good to have three playing reeds at any time, so you can rotate them every 20-30 minutes.
Might not just be the reeds. Too easy to blame the reeds, even though they are troublesome. Takes quite a while to build a good oboe embouchure, two years is toddler yet. So it might perhaps be too tight an embouchure built by habit over the last two years and that's a re-learning curve. Need oboe teacher to trouble-shoot.
Try this in the meantime. When your really wet reed is closing up, pucker up your lips around the blades and nibble-squeeze them in from each side to open up the blades. Blow, WOW!
Refine the tone by tightening mostly your lower lip, pulling from mouth corners, also pull lower lip a bit behind upper lip, and drop the bottom of your mouth a notch. Trying saying Phfewt! without the reed to give you a better idea. If you end up saying Phooey, your lower lip's not pulled back enough. This position discourages 'biting'.
Then switch your opened-up too-wet reed for another reed and use this adjusted embouchure style on it. You'll probably notice an improvement in tone right away, combination of not so wet reed & more open embouchure.
Now, how long can you hold that new embouchure for playing ... uh huh !
The older a reed, the less soaking it needs to be playable. You may be over-soaking an older reed, it gets too wet too quickly that way. Just dip older reed and let it sit and soak up surface water.
Old reeds get 'pppy' and 'blown out'. They could last three months, or three weeks, three days, three hours, or only three minutes! It all depends ... No matter how much air support is behind them, old reeds seem to only be able to manage softer sounds (great for practising at home with cranky parents). Old reeds should be given a decent burial, don't cling to them. Cut the cord & canes off carefully, salvage the tubes. Get new reeds frequently. It's the biggest ongoing expense in an oboe player's life! The price diff between clarinet, sax and oboe reeds is truly staggering. Theirs blow out every other week or so, and so do oboe reeds, but the cost makes us hang on too long ...
When you've finished playing all your reeds for today, reshape them to a wide aperture so they dry in open position.
Plastic oboes don't usually do rich full upper register. Some wood ones don't either. Don't overblow your guts if the oboe can't go there.
Anyway, upper register notes need air pressure boost, not just 'good air support'. 'Crunch' your abs firmly behind your belly button and hold it like a yoga pose. Squeeze out more air smoothly like toothpaste. Adjust and change air pressure boosts appropriately and immediately when switching octave keys.
Practice regularly every single day, it all adds up to improving fast for upcoming concert, me too :-)
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