Author: hautbois
Date: 2007-10-01 22:38
Here are a few ideas: I suggest you bring along your current oboe, and play it alternately with instruments you are trying, to retain a firm concept of what is the same or different in the available instruments. Also bring a tuner. Before you go, consciously identify what you like/don't like about your current oboe. On the test instruments, check the scales for evenness of tone and intonation, fullness in the upper range, ease of attack in piano esp. in the lower range. Try to narrow down the selection quickly, not wasting time and embouchure on instruments which probably will not suit you. If there is a repairperson available, ask to have any irregularities in adjustment attended to on the spot. If the instrument is out of regulation, you will not be able to determine what it might be like when adjusted properly. Use several reeds, comparing them on your old instrument and the others. If nothing really speaks to you, ask if there is some other instrument which is not on display, and also identify which brand of oboe tended to please you the most. (About 15 years ago I used to fly to LA for a day to try Lorees at RDG; I would usually try about 20 instruments over the course of @4 hours, and then tell Bob, the former owner, that nothing was suitable. He would then bring a few out "from the back", and they would be terrific.) Take several hours, if you can; try to arrange to take the most desirable instruments home with you for a week or two, to make reeds on them and discover their idiosyncracies, and hopefully play them in your performance venues with a colleague to listen in the hall, and/or play them while you listen.
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The Oboe BBoard
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