 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: EaubeauHorn
Date: 2017-04-23 22:10
I have now run into two different John Mack students who can and do make reeds quickly. I saw a post here where someone let the reed sit for days in between stages of scraping. My teacher, (now retired) taught what he called a "tech class" at the local university, and one of his requirements was that his students be able to scrape a playable reed in five minutes. He himself would make an extremely good reed in 10-15 minutes (as opposed to "just" playable; finished.) I of course got to watch many times, and the initial "scraping" was more like whittling, with curls of cane being produced between the heart and the tip, which came off at the first tip clip. Not "cane dust." So...what is the philosophy behind letting the reed "rest" or "sit" or whatever it does, for days at a time after each stage of scraping?
I have also seen Youtube videos of excellent reeds being made quickly, all in one sitting, as opposed to the many days of rest or whatever. So it is not uncommon.
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Author: Jeltsin
Date: 2017-04-23 23:18
I can make a very good reed in fifteen minutes, but to get it to be a perfect reed I usually let it rest for 48 huors before I do some minor small adjustments.
Post Edited (2017-04-23 23:19)
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Author: Wes
Date: 2017-04-24 00:38
In my experience, the 20-minute reed may perform but could be hard to play for 20 minutes and too hard to play the next day. It also may be unstable after a little bit of playing. Comments on reed stability would be interesting!
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Author: oboist2
Date: 2017-04-24 03:18
Generally, for me....I find that if I make a reed quickly - it may last the day, but if I come to it the next day, too much cane has been removed for me to adjust to use it again. I can get weeks out of a reed if I make it slowly and in steps. My students get 6 weeks from one of my reeds easily. I used to know an American player who would make three reeds every day before breakfast....the next day those three reeds would be with a student as he would no longer play on them.
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Author: mschmidt
Date: 2017-04-24 06:09
If I were a pro, making reeds every day, I could probably could learn to make reeds quickly. But, as an amateur, I find that slow is the way to go. It seems like as you increase the amount of cane taken off per stroke, you increase the chance of taking off too much in any given stroke.
I am also a pretty mentally-flexible individual--which is great for creativity, but lousy for consistency. I often adapt OK to a reed that I am scraping, but after I've put it away and played other reeds for a while, I better see what is "wrong" with the reed that I've been working on when I come back to it. So, while there may be some physico-chemical process that happens to "resting" reeds, I find there is also some psychological recalibration that happens to the reedmaker/player as well.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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Author: EaubeauHorn
Date: 2017-04-25 19:37
Ha, I am also a "mentally flexible" individual, with the same problem of being lousy for consistency. You made me laugh!! I strive for routine because it is so hard for me to do something the same way twice. And patience is not my strong suit. I keep struggling to figure out this reed making thing because I love the sound of the instrument so much. I figure, if I could learn (French) horn in my 40s and be successful at it, why not oboe in my 60s? As an oboe playing friend of mine said, the oboe itself is not so bad; it's the ding-blasted reeds!
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Author: Wes
Date: 2017-04-25 22:56
To recheck my situation, I made two 20 minute reeds yesterday in two 10 minute sessions with drying between sessions. One plays great today and the other a bit harder today, easy to fix by thinning the corners. They both had a bit of raised grain today, which can act as a stiffener. The stability of these reeds is fine and both play in tune at A440 but I'm still in need of advice on reed stability. My feeling is that I will continue with quickly made reeds.
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2017-04-25 23:47
Haha ... give me the perfect piece of cane, etc........... (how about the weather?) and ...........
I'll give you a good concert reed in 20 minutes too.
However, life doesn't work that way.
It takes me a few days to get the reed I want .... although once in a while the cane cooperates ...... can't tell you why.
Mark
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2017-04-26 15:43
Next time one of u makes a Reed.. I want to watch!
I must hang my head and confess to using Howarth reeds all the time.
I don't even know how to adjust the ones that are no longer playable...
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Author: Wes
Date: 2017-04-28 09:52
Actually, even though a quickly made reed plays quite good, I would not take one to a serious rehearsal or engagement without daily playing and adjusting it for a couple of weeks. Cane changes after being made into a reed. The grain raises, the step between the tip and the hump gets less defined, and the cane seems to expand a tiny bit. By daily playing and adjusting, the reed may stop changing and give good service.
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Author: Oblique
Date: 2017-04-28 18:10
So what is the stopping point on day one of reed making? Can you hit low Bb easily? Do notes sound immediately? Is it hitting mid C perfectly?
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Author: Wes
Date: 2017-04-29 04:21
Well, a softly played low Bb or low C may indicate a good reed as well as being in general good tuning on other notes.
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Author: mschmidt
Date: 2017-04-29 20:29
Well, today I paid attention to time while making a reed. From the time I started scraping until I could get a good crow and test the reed on the instrument, 13-15 minutes. At this point it was way too resistant and I couldn't have practiced or performed on it for any length of time, but it sounded ok and was in tune. Within the next fifteen minutes, I adjusted it a lot, putting it out of tune, dragging it back in again, rebalancing, etc, until I got it to the point where I thought I could play a concert on it if I really had to--it was in tune, didn't sound terrible, and didn't require extreme athleticism to play. I started practicing repertoire at this point on the reed and it seemed to be getting more resistant and stuffy--although it may also have been that I had initially misjudged the reed's ease of playing, and was just getting tired. I made some more adjustments and, one hour after beginning the scrape, thought the reed could easily be put away for another day. But I had more practicing to do, and played it for fifteen minutes more, at the end of which I made just a little more adjustment and put it away thinking, "this might turn out to be a good reed." I will come back to it tomorrow and report on how much time I have to spend in further adjustments.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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Author: GoodWinds ★2017
Date: 2017-04-30 23:54
Whether or not I 'can' make a reed in 20 minutes from start to finish, I will ALWAYS be an 'incremental' reed maker. Taking 4+ sessions to finish a reed.
Just a habit, but it allows the cane to 'settle', I think.
GoodWinds
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Author: mschmidt
Date: 2017-05-01 07:46
This morning I continued to make adjustments to the reed over the course of over an hour of practicing. I suppose the total elapsed time I spent making adjustments was less than 10 minutes, but I certainly had to play the reed over that period of time to really get a sense of what it needed.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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