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Re: tonguing and reeds

Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-02-06 01:36

I'm confused - you say you have "better low/high notes". If the notes don't speak properly...how exactly are they better????

You shouldn't have to struggle to tongue the reed; it should just be there. Work on tonguing to practice different articulations, or improve the speed of rapidly tongued passages...but not just to get the reed to speak.

When judging a reed's quality you should ask yourself (or the reed) a few questions:

Is it vibrating? The reed has to be freely vibrating. Period. The reed must be loose enough for you to tongue the reed quickly, repeatedly, and IN TIME.

Is it in tune? Play the reed in the oboe: do you have to bite the pitch up? do you have to lip down excessively? Adjust so that biting, or lipping down isn't necessary. The reed should just "sit" at pitch.

Is it stable? We all have varying degrees of what we consider a stable reed, but generally, you should be able to tongue high notes easily (an unstable reed makes this pretty near impossible) and crescendo/decrescendo without the pitch flying everywhere.

DO NOT make hard stuffy reeds in hopes that you will have good tone. You really won't.

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