Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2017-01-04 16:44
You’re asking quite a huge question there!
Since I posted my first respons 6 years ago, I have come to realize 3 things:
1. time, practice, perseverance DOES improve endurance: today, I can practice for 2 hours or even more when I am distracted by Facebook! :-)
2. “easy” reeds (quotes are meaningful) are a huge help
3. scraping style and shape mean almost (almost) nothing
#1 is obvious
#2 is relative, because a reed can be hard to blow and yet super responsive. This kind of reed is not good for endurance, but it is still easy to play. On the converse, I have several reeds that are very easy to blow, but they don’t respond well at all: these ones are fatiguing something horrid. But most importantly is any reed (easy or not) that plays well in tune will facilitate endurance - I have lots of reeds that are very easy and responsive, but they don’t “play nice” in terms of tuning: I have to use my lip firmness AND breath support a lot to compensate ….. more breath support means more holding back from the lips means more fatigue. à
=> typically, I find reeds that play just a little bit sharp are very stable and they allow me to play on the very tip of the reed: so always very relaxed.
#3 I like wide European (short) scrape. Many people here will say that these are very hard and require biting: FALSE! I have played several times on American scrape reeds, made by professionals or by amateurs with Bachelor’s and even Master’s degrees in oboe performance - their reeds often follow the adage “if you can breathe enough to talk, you can play the oboe” => seriously, I can’t play on those reeds to save my life: no apologies to anyone, this is how it is, they really don’t work for me, and I have been playing for over 30 years. And when people preach a sermon about how the right reed and embouchure means you don’t need to blow hard and then they huff-and puff, exhausted after 30 seconds of playing and automatically complain that all their reeds are crappy and that it is quite normal because playing the oboe to be a painful experience, I put my foot down and say HOGWASH - I am the living proof that it is not so! (See the “recording history” tab on my blog if you need any proof.)
However, SOME reed makers DO make American scrape reeds that I have found satisfactory, at least for a few minutes of playing. Nonetheless, my preference is hands down for easy-blowing short-scrape. What does seem common among all scraping styles is the reed should not open more than 1 or 1.5 mm. More than that allows for a really rich sound and loud dynamics, but it makes tuning very unstable and requires lots of embouchure work.
In terms of wide vs narrow, open/closed staple …. this is not straight-forward: those interplay with the instrument, experience and more. This is where I truly believe a person’s physical characteristics (e.g. blowing volume and strength can vary over time) will change which description you prefer. Vendors don’t mention these things because you essentially have to already be an expert reed maker to grasp the implications, and by then, you know enough that other things impact even more (density of cane, the actual cane producer, the harvest year etc.). In fact, even your preferences and goals for dynamic expression and articulation will change the type of reed you prefer - WAY too much to describe on a website.
Finally, I would not recommend any vendor to label their reeds as hard or soft for one specific reason: when shipping to a different geographic region, the cane, being a soft grain plant, will behave very differently. In fact, I’m sure most people here (regardless of scraping style) will agree that a reed that plays wonderfully one day (in a specific weather pattern) will be horrible next week (in a different weather pattern) and vice-versa! German players like very hard reeds as a rule, I think the French and Spanish do too, to a lesser degree. A few Chinese makers (KGE and Yong How Keen) actually make amazing reeds, to my taste.
So where does that leave you?
I suggest writing to a few reed-makers (American and European Scrape), state your experience and need for soft reeds that will build endurance, buy at least 3 from each (1 is never enough to form a just opinion) and take it from there.
I’m sure many people can recommend excellent reed makers. For American Scrape, I like Tanya Jonson Galloway (http://www.reedpros.com) and for European scrape, I like several, but for starters you might focus on easy playing rather than full-featured performance, so Tipple has pleased me in this respect (http://www.tippleoboereeds.co.uk).
Good luck and let us know how things turn out!
Robin
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
Post Edited (2017-01-04 16:45)
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