Author: Craig Matovich
Date: 2007-04-26 15:34
Hey,
Those were great, and got me thinking and even challanging my own statements about my crow. And I was wrong about my own crow!
Specifically, where I place the reed (how far in) and what is the pitch of the reed alone in its real playing position in the playing embouchure.
I noticed, I crow at the thread, say with the thread line about half way into the lip, so a little cane is being touched as well. Its here I use tee - ahh to hear the upper c, then drop the lower c in. But it turns out the lower c appears as I approach the 'ahh' vowel rather than when I really open up to it as I thought, and then continuing on the 'ohh' (more open) loses the lower c and only the upper c remains. I found this to be true on 6 reeds I played this morning, some new, some broken in.
Amazing, what looking in the mirror can show. I don't think in 40 years of playing oboe I ever studied the crow so intently.
The other think I learned was the 'playing crow', and I would rather call it the 'toot', is truely a single pitch, and down around a sharp b-flat.
I took a fairly old reed that had a triple c crow, clipped it so it only doubled (removed a little side of the heart to drop pitch and mellow it), and it came to life and plays very well centered, and although gives the impression is is a bit resistent, articulates well enough to play the Silken Ladder confidently all the way down to low c, and it slurs across the 3rd octave break to e or d easily while doing a crescendo or decrescendo.
This is great stuff...!!! ![[toast]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley15.gif)
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