Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-03-03 17:26
"old stock reeds"--who is calling them that? I mean, who is this person who is offering something called "old stock reeds" for sale? It could mean anything. For starters, it could be a mistranslation (deliberate or otherwise) of "old style" reeds, which could mean European scrape, as opposed to American scrape, and you don't wanna get started having to deal with European scrape just yet.
It could also conceivably mean old "stock reeds", meaning pre-shaped reeds from a mass-production facility that haven't been hand-adjusted yet, so basically they're still just reed blanks, and not playable.
Really, you'll just have to trust us on this: there's no secret way to beat the high cost of oboe reeds. Seriously, if there were, we'd have found it. The only way to do it is to learn to make your own, but many of us, including myself, don't have time for that, so we manage just fine with commercially made reeds, both 100% handmade by oboe professionals, and with good-quality mass-produced reeds.
The El Cheapo reeds I bought from the Ebay guy not only had poor-quality crumbling cork, they were also 2 millimeters too fat to fit into the reed well, which is just stupid and pointless--it means he used totally bargain-basement Made-In-China extremely cheap staples for his reeds. Anyway, yeah, you can put cork grease on them, but you shouldn't have to, is the point here. Well-made standard oboe staples don't normally have a problem with fitting into the reed well.
Anyway, you can put some cork grease on it, then work it in with your fingers. You don't want to have a bunch of excess grease on there, because when you shove the reed into the oboe, the excess grease will collect at the base of the reed and possibly go up into the staple and restrict the airflow, which would be a Bad Thing. Then to get the reed out again, or to adjust its angle in the reed well, your fingers will just slip off, so you use a piece of cloth (your shirt tail if you like, or I use a clean washcloth) to grab onto the reed and get it out.
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