Author: cjwright
Date: 2007-04-26 03:33
This is an interesting thread.
Being in Korea, I finally found another oboist that I enjoy listening to, and working with, so I've been taking some coaching lessons with. She's a former Ferillo student at Juilliard, and has come back to Korea, and plays a kind of "hybrid' reed between German and American. That said, she has some really insightful observations on the American style reed and the affects of such things as the crow.
Interestling, Ferillo insists that the oboe reed should crow 1 C first, and 2 Cs at full air. Three Cs is PROHIBITED, because the more C's there are, the more the reed will sag in the upper register. I didn't realize this, but now that I've messed around, I do believe she is correct.
Furthermore, I find that the necessity of a C crow is very subjective, mainly because different people use different lip pressure, biting (to a large or little degree), and gain different compression based upon their muscular makeup. However, for those who do not bite (at all) nor do they use extreme lip pressure will generally play a reed which crows a C, give or take 20 or 30 cents.
Nowadays I make two or three reeds a day, and let them sit overnight. The next day I pick the best one and use it as my practice reed that day. After playing on it for 30 or 40 minutes, I crow it again and usually the pitch drops a bit, and I feel it in my mouth. When the pitch drops, I have to work a lot harder.
Finally, I would agree with Graham that some types of cane give enough "bottom" to the reed to not need the second C octave. Thus I don't scrape it and enjoy the extra stability.
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