 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: EaubeauHorn
Date: 2018-03-20 03:09
Quite a few months ago, my oboe suddenly would not play any of the lower joint notes. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was either just squeaks or an octave up. I contacted a well-reputed repair shop a couple hours away and took it to them. Without testing the oboe, they did a complete take-apart, cleaning, and adjustment and charged me quite a bit of money. I played it at the shop and it seemed fine.
The next morning, I had exactly the same problem as before, and contacted them. They basically said, it played ok at the shop so....
I finally figured out that when I picked it up off the stand, the upper and lower joint were slightly out of alignment because of how I picked it up, and that was causing the weirdness in the playing. Someone more skilled than I would probably have noted the slight mis-alignment but I didn't. All I had to do was make sure it was put together properly and it played fine. So I was out that large sum of money for nothing; it didn't need work and if they had play tested it before taking it apart, that would have been apparent. I'm fully aware of my own stupidity in this but I didn't take $250 into the back yard and burn it, which is what I feel like they did.
What would you do? What I'm doing is never giving them any business again, although I'll have to mail it somewhere if it needs serious work.
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Author: Barry Vincent
Date: 2018-03-20 06:27
So I take it that your Oboe is the full conservatoire system with the two linkages between the joints. One is the RH C/D trill linkage and the other is for the conservatoire B and C fingerings with the added RH first finger. Yes. always make sure that they are correctly connected. Apparently the two joints are looser than normal for it to be put out of alignment when you picked it up. Perhaps you've put too much grease on the connecting cork. If so , wipe it all off and see it the joints connect together more firmly.
Skyfacer
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Author: oboeyogi
Date: 2018-03-20 09:42
It could also be the F# to G# linkage, Which I find has a habit of going out of adjustment to often.
As for what I would do is just put it down to learning. The other thing is you learn how to adjust the oboe I went to a double reed work shop by the ADRS and got shown how and other tech stuff on my oboe.
Thanks Nicholas
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Author: mschmidt
Date: 2018-03-22 02:08
I wouldn't be too hard on the repair shop. It is rather standard practice to do a "periodic servicing" of an oboe regardless of how it's playing. I alternate taking my oboe and English horn in every year so they're never more than 2 years from a service. Isolating a problem can often be as expensive as doing the once-over for everything, and other potential problems get taken care of before they manifest themselves. You may not notice it, but your oboe is probably in better condition than when you took it to them. I say probably, because maybe your repair people aren't good. But I often can tell little difference when I got my oboe back from John Peterson at RDG (one of the best of the best) after its biennial service, but I don't have things failing on me for the next two years, either.
Pros, of course, get these servicings done annually or even more frequently. There's a lot of mechanism on an oboe, with a lot of adjustments, touch-corks, pads, and springs. They need to be looked after.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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Author: DeletedUser
Date: 2018-03-23 03:13
It seems that there are good repair shops and ones that can spot a cash cow a mile away. My advice is to learn how to do your own repairs. And one day the repair tech will be history if they don't start treating customers right.
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Author: mschmidt
Date: 2018-03-23 21:13
I don't think we have adequately established that the repair shop EaubeauHorn was using was in fact disreputable. We know that, the day AFTER EaubeauHorn brought his oboe back from the repair shop, his problem was due to misalignment. But what if the problem in the previous days and weeks was poor sealing of pads and misadjustment? Maybe the misalignment occurred after servicing because the corks were newly greased and the joint was more slippery than he or she was used to. We do not have data on what would have happened if the oboe was correctly aligned before servicing.
If you drive repair techs out of business because you hazard guesses as to their competence based on insufficient data, what will you do when you have a problem that you can't fix yourself? Do you want to attempt your first crack pinning on your own and only instrument, without any more training than what you can find on YouTube? Sure, we need to be careful about making sure the techs we pay are competent--but "careful" may sometimes include giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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Author: EaubeauHorn
Date: 2018-03-23 21:48
It had played perfectly fine the day before I got the weirdness. Like I said, I take responsibility for my stupidity about the alignment, and no longer store it on the stand. It was twisted just the tiniest bit and my hand alignment was not far enough off that I noticed. And it had been to a local guy for adjustment after it fell, within the last week. One of the keys was still slow, and I didn't want to take it back to him because he makes sexual innuendos the entire time I am there and I get really tired of that. So I was going to make the drive to the other place anyway, for what I thought would be a very minor adjustment of the slowly responding right hand pinky key, and then the weirdness occurred.
Did it need cleaning? Maybe. But it played, for my purposes, perfectly well. When I had got it off ebay (Rigoutat Expression, which ergonomically is very good for me) and took it to my very competent teacher, he had found a slight bend in one of the left pinky keys, fixed it, said he bet that was why they sold it, and it was of a quality that he would play it at a concert immediately. So it was not messed up when I bought it.....and I had no problems until it got knocked over. I was lucky in that it was not badly messed up and needed only minor adjustment, but then the next day the sticky key. Followed by the weirdness and the two hour trip to a pretty well known shop which clearly I am not going to identify. And the rest of the story. I still feel like I was ripped off because if they had put it together and play tested it, they would have found very little to do and I would not feel like I burned a pile of money in the back yard.
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Author: DeletedUser
Date: 2018-05-11 18:52
That's funny that you say that because I had the same problem - less taking it to a repair person. I noticed that when you press on the first touch-piece on the lower joint it connects to an arm that has an adjusting screw to make contact with the lowest tone hole cup/ pad on the UPPER JOINT. I blew into the upper joint and noticed that a small amount of air was coming out of that pad. So when I connected the lower joint and pressed the first big key it sounded like a register key was pressed causing the high pitch. So all I did was make sure the arm from the upper joint was making a small amount of contact with the upper joint key.
I am a beginner - so I hope the information makes sense.
Yes alignment was the issue for me and its too bad that you had the misfortune to take it to someone that seems so desperate for work that they had to "do all that work" to your oboe. Personally speaking, I dont think they did half of what you paid for. That is why I do simple things myself - and I always ask about things on this board. The people seem to know what they are talking about.
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Author: DeletedUser
Date: 2018-05-11 19:00
Oh that's right you want to know what I would do.
I would tell them that they did the work for nothing and ask for a partial refund. At least half. Let them keep the money for the parts they put in.
Post Edited (2018-05-12 08:29)
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Author: EaubeauHorn
Date: 2018-06-12 22:19
This is old news now, but whatever. They did not put ANY new parts in that I know of, and it could have used a tenon cork. They immediately completely tore it apart, both joints, and cleaned it, without play testing it first. They made a big deal, too, about wanting to keep me as a customer. Apparently because I am such an easy mark. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
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