 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-11-29 12:16
I feel like I had to start a new thread on this...based on a lot of "reed color" discussions.
To be honest - of all the really good oboe players out there, I don't think any of them have a sound that I would call "dark". What is dark anyway? Non-reedy? Focused? Clear?
Whenever I hear someone who says they have "dark" reeds...I don't understand. How can a reed be dark? (other than dark cane..maybe..) Perhaps I, myself, have a dark tone and don't know it...I dunno. What irks me, as of late, is the obsession of many oboe players with getting a dark tone...but when people are asked to describe the dark tone they wish to achieve, no one, in concrete terms, can!
First of all - and I know I am going to start a controversy - sound cannot have colors that are attributed to the light spectrum. I'm sorry. So, unless someone has some new physics to prove otherwise, I stand by that. So by saying someone has a darker/brighter sound in relation to someone else is meaningless.
The reason it bothers me this much is that SO many oboists I talk to say that they make adjustments in their reed to "darken" the sound. What????
The tone of a particular piece of cane is set from before you even make the first scrape on the reed. The type of cane and the quality of the gouge - that's it. So why make an adjustment to "darken" the reed? Why make reeds xyz-fashion so that they come out "dark"?
I believe that the reed should function optimally to allow to most refinement in the musical expression - that's all! That usually means 5 things:
-in tune
-stable
-responsive
-flexible (derives from the above 3 things)
-resists correctly to the breath (derives from first 3 things)
It also happens that those are the only 3 things that a reed maker can CONTROL. So why go looking for something (i.e. some quality of tone) in the reed that is out of one's control?
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Author: hautbois
Date: 2007-11-29 13:33
Perhaps, d-oboe, you were just trying to stir up some reactions by trying to limit the definition of "dark" to the light spectrum. Surely you do not go through life without the use of metaphor or analogy. (Note that in the Mirriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, for which my PhD daughter was one of the lexicographers, one definition of "dark" is: "possessing depth or richness", as in a voice.) It is by analogy of course that some players refer to a reed color ("color", of course, also being used by analogy) or to an instrument or sound as "dark" or "bright".
Part of what I think of as a "dark" sound has to do with what I hear as a complex tone, with less presence of aspects that would be considered more "piercing" or "bright". I view a complex tone as one which (another metaphor here) has layers which the player can peel back and open up to produce a multitude of nuances and shadings. A good "dark" reed would, with embouchure adjustments, be able to create a strident sound when the music requires; but it would have as its default tendency, a timbre towards the other end of the tone spectrum.
Sometimes a husky type of sound is called a dark sound. I would call that a less responsive reed, as although huskiness might be called for from time to time by the music (perhaps a blend with the clarinet in multo diminuendo), I do not strive for that to be the default tendency of the reed.
Good topic, d-oboe. I am interested to see where it leads.
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Author: kdrew922
Date: 2007-11-29 14:29
When we attempt to describe sound, we almost always resort to metaphor, so I wouldn't get hung up on the inappropriateness of this or that term used literally. Having said that, I try to avoid "bright" and "dark" when describing tone, simply because the terms tend to be applied qualitatively, not descriptively. For many players, "dark" is synonymous with "good" and "bright" with "bad." Whatever we like we call "dark," whatever we dislike we call "bright," such that players of differing taste may describe entirely opposite sounds as "dark." Granted, such inconsistency can be seen in the application of just about any terminology for describing timbre, but in my experience the terms "dark" and "bright" are especially nebulous. Clear, focused, centered, reedy, raspy, edgy, broad, agile, plodding, ringing, spinning... these all seem to me to have more specifically descriptive meaning, albeit highly metaphorical.
Cheers,
Drew
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Author: Schell
Date: 2007-11-29 16:41
I agree in that I do not like the descriptors dark and light for tone. What I like to think of tone as is (and quoting John Mack) "A matter of life and depth." A good tone to me had depth and multi-layredness but it also has a ring, or sparkle. This combination makes for a beautiful sound that can both blend with others in the orchestra or stand out as a soloist.
in regards to your comment that "sound cannot have colors that are attributed to the light spectrum."- I wonder if you've heard about synesthesia. Some people are born with a "cross-wiring" of the senses which causes them to mix their senses. Someone with synesthesia might hear an Ab and simultaneously experience the color maroon in their head. There have been composers (notably Olivier Messiaen) who wrote music based on the colors that that music created in their mind due to synesthesia. The most common form is actually experiencing colors associated with each letter. A person with that type of synesthesia would see the words of this post in a vast variety of colors (each letter has one color that it always appears to them as) while the rest of us only see black and white. While synesthesia is fairly uncommon some people who have it actually DO attribute colors to the sounds they're hearing!
for more about synesthesia I reccommend Richard Cytoic's book "The Man Who Tasted Shapes"
ashle
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-11-29 18:11
The point I'm trying to make is that, while these metaphorical things provide excellent imagery, they are not objective factual things. When we talk about reeds, we only have the option to speak factually. They aren't metaphorical concepts...they are pieces of vibrating plant!
The reason I say this is that too many teachers stay only in the metaphors and the imagery, and leave the technical knowledge to somehow be discovered.
So when someone sets out to make a "dark" reed...they are probably going to get extremely frustrated in the process. Why? It isn't a characteristic of vibration. Vibrations don't have colors - they have frequencies.
A good reed will have a balance between all the frequencies of vibration. The consensus among most reed authorities is that the reed should crow in octaves without any additional pitches. (the exact pitch of the crow is debatable though...some are firm on C, some are less fussy)
Whatever we believe is fine - but when we go to teach our craft to another, younger student...we have to really question ourselves. If the student has no concrete grasp of how things REALLY work, they will not be able to teach it to someone else - a phenomenon all too common in the music field these days.
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-11-29 19:56
Well, yeah, a good reed should be balanced--but in my (admittedly limited) experience, all reeds are going to tend to be either more--or less--piercing, on a spectrum of "piercing-ness". And for convenience, we term the ones that tend to be less piercing "dark" and the ones that are more piercing "bright", because it's human nature to want to categorize things.
Also, "bright" sounds nicer than "piercing", and "dark" has a nicer connotation than "not as piercing". Saying "He makes bright reeds" sounds a lot more flattering than saying "He makes piercing reeds". And saying that someone who makes reeds that are "not as piercing" sounds like you're damning with faint praise.
"What are his reeds like?"
"They're not as piercing."
" [pause]..."
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Author: JudyP
Date: 2007-11-29 21:49
I have played reeds which are piercing when new, but they become mellow or darker after they are broken-in. Somehow, the brighter, new reeds seem to hit flat notes; but that might be my embouchure and not the reed. These are also student reeds, but I have played medium strength reeds these past five months.
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Author: vboboe
Date: 2007-11-30 01:42
... i think the real problem here lies in the differences in metaphorical associations between the various regions of english speaking peoples and of course individuals themselves, example, as a former anglo, yours truly doesn't think bright is a negative metaphorical word at all (unless it's 'too bright') because bright seems metaphorically linked with goodness, inner light, godliness, sunshine, Christmas spirit, etc.
On the other hand, to this former anglo, dark does have negative metaphorical associations which probably were built by the pervasive sooty and dirty dust made by coal (the common winter fuel of my youth), the dark smoke arising from coal fires and the sooty mess left behind in the chimney afterwards, especially in dark, weary January, followed by (forked F) February
American classic movies follow the metaphorical idea of bright white hat and light clothes = good guy, black hat and dark clothes = bad guy
North of 60, dark = no sunlight, as in dreary, biting and hostile cold polar winter and much of the far country north of 49 is acquainted with that experience in one way or another, so perhaps dark isn't metaphorically associated with sound, but with something undesirable and unbearably tedious
... but, to comprehend oboe reed sound as 'bright' there has to be something in sound to illustrate the metaphorical association, so 'bright' reminds me of cheery Handel or cheeky Mozart, and 'dark' reminds me of Pathetique or Isle of the Dead
... therefore, transfering the metaphor, to me bright /dark are essentially emotive words used to describe certain qualities in reed sound that readily lend themselves to being played for emotive delivery
... the thing is, i suspect this isn't what americans mean when they say dark or bright, so methinks it's important to understand the metaphorical associations that really make the difference here
... using a 'tangy' reed to play Pathetique wouldn't sound right, any more than using a 'husky' reed would sound right to play Hallelujah chorus
... likewise, using a beautifully mellow 'chamber music' reed to play atonal music with jarring discordances would be a waste, but might be a welcome performance opportunity for some of those disagreeably atonal pieces of vibrating plant that would normally end up in the basket ...
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2007-11-30 01:54
dark = gordon hunt, bert lucarelli
bright = heinz holliger, john de lancie
just to name a few....
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-11-30 13:09
Also, from a biologist's point of view, homo sapiens being a diurnal creature, "light" is good and "dark" is bad, because the darkness is when all the predators who can see much better than we do, hunt. And we're edible.
Which tends to carry over into things like language and religion. We personify our gods as the sun, the ultimate light source, for example.
So when we hear someone say that a reed sounds "dark", we instinctively recoil, just a tiny bit.
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-11-30 14:34
Neat responses!
I think the important thing to state is that timbre of sound is extremely subjective. It follows, then, that we cannot attribute objective qualities to it.\
"Heinz Holliger has a bright sound"
vs.
"Heinz Holliger has a sound with more high partials than most American oboe players"
The second statement actually says something concrete and objective about what we are hearing.
However, timbre actually doesn't matter. Why?
The best musicians (or actors/actresses, even) don't lock their voice in a specific tone, and then just use it for all occasions. Of course not! The best performers are extremely flexible - they are physically capable of adapting to many different kinds of situations.
So back to the reeds:
Why is it then logical to "make a dark reed" or "make a bright reed"? If the best quality in a performer is flexibility and adaptability, shouldn't it follow that the reed allows the performer to do that?
Most IMPROVEMENT as a player comes in learning how to be flexible and to adapt. Making a reed darker/brighter DOES NOT meet that goal, because it isn't something concrete that one can evaluate oneself on. Does a bright tone mean one is less able to adapt and a dark tone more? Nope!
What does meet the goal is making a reed that is very comfortable, and that allows one to really seek out the best possible phrasing in a piece of music.
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2007-11-30 16:32
"I think the important thing to state is that timbre of sound is extremely subjective. It follows, then, that we cannot attribute objective qualities to it.\
"Heinz Holliger has a bright sound" vs. "Heinz Holliger has a sound with more high partials than most American oboe players"
The second statement actually says something concrete and objective about what we are hearing."
I don't think it's as subjective as you make it out to be. If you asked ten trained oboists to listen to various players and plot them on a spectrum from bright to dark, my guess is you'd get an overwhelming statistical fit. I do agree, however, that at the end of the day, an explanation based on overtones that correlate to these players' sounds is probably available, just to put the whole thing on a more scientific footing. The descriptive words we use are indeed non-scientific, but so is saying the sky is blue compared to saying that it's refracting electro-magnetic radiation from the sun's fusion reaction in such a manner that our retinal sensors only process a certain range of the underlying wave frequencies (with apologies in advance to any physicists out there!).
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-11-30 18:29
"I don't think it's as subjective as you make it out to be. If you asked ten trained oboists to listen to various players and plot them on a spectrum from bright to dark, my guess is you'd get an overwhelming statistical fit"
My point is not really how we perceive sound - i can honestly say that I have and still do categorize players with respect to their various timbres of sound.
My point is, however, to say that for a learning oboist (indeed we are all learning oboists, and it never stops) to pursue something as vague as a specific timbre is really pointless. For many oboists that I talk to, the only thing they can say about a specific oboe player is "ooohhh what a nice tone s/he has"
I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I have heard a colleague (except my oboe teachers) say ANYTHING about how well a particular musician phrases something so well, or how they captured xyz nuance perfectly.
So my point about the whole dark reeds thing...if an oboist's sole intention in performing is to "get a dark sound like Mr. X, or get a bright sound like Mr. Y" they are wasting enormous amounts of energy searching for something that will probably never come!
My teacher always talks about capturing the "character" (he means the french "caractère"..so.. temperament) of the music. So the reed must be built to allow us to find, experiment, and then DO that. Once all the nuances have been perfected, tone isn't even an issue anymore because the music is actually there.
So my plea is - stop worrying about tone y'all and just find the music!
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Author: cjwright
Date: 2007-11-30 19:10
I make a lot of reeds for a lot of people, most of them who say they want "dark reeds". While I will admit that some like the fullness (more lower partials) from my RDG 2 shape, I rarely get comments like "ewe, these reeds are so bright!" I don't describe my reeds as dark, and in fact might lean toward the bright side.
Are all of these adjectives the same? "Darker - Covered - Rounder"
Are all of these adjectives the same? "Brighter - Piercing - Buzzy"
I think we often group these adjectives together, but I would describe my reeds as brighter, middle of covered and piercing, and rounder.
Finally, when I first started making reeds I had a huge list of questions for each reedmaker to help me get a sense of what they preferred. While some things might have helped, I found in general that people just want a reed that works WELL where they don't need to do much but stick it in and blow! This is particularly true since most of the people have day jobs, and aren't professionals, and therefore need an even better, more finished reed than a pro would because they're not necessarily in the best of shape (and need a reed that covers their insufficiencies.) This idea of functionality, as d-oboe so clearly points out, seems to be the top priority in a reed.
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Author: oboeblank
Date: 2007-11-30 19:13
I think you are forgetting that when an oboist says that they are “scraping this reed a little to make it darker” what they really mean, I think, is that they are trying to modify the tone for what they hear in their head. Let me explain: Mr. Killmer of the Eastman school often says, “Listen to your sound from across the room”. The tone that we hear is not the tone that other people hear but the sound we hear, literally in our heads. I often “darken” my reeds considerably because all I hear is the upper partial in the tone. I don’t feel that I am chasing the dark tone, but trying to fix the sound I am hearing between my ears; which leads me to the next point…you will never “find the music” if you are forever worrying about the tone. So, obsess if you must on achieving that dark tone, as long as you know that it is not the arrival point but the departure point.
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2007-11-30 19:28
"So my plea is - stop worrying about tone y'all and just find the music!"
I strongly agree that focusing on tone to the exclusion of or in preference to other elements of musicality is crazy. However (and I think we actually agree on this), a search for a particular timbre that pleases is an important part of one's development as an oboist. My theory would be that we are heavily influenced by our most influential teachers...we become conditioned to associate their tonality with excellence and we strive to mimic it - so much of the initial learning process, and I'm talking years here, is just mimicking our teachers, isn't it? Later, we might incorporate ideas about tone from other oboists we come to admire. So, when you hear an oboist obsessing about tone who has no chops as a musician, it's not a good thing. But in my opinion tonal differences are real, can be described quite objectively, and it's impossible not to develop preferences. On the other hand, I also believe it is quite possible as you seem to suggest to aspire to deploying an array of different tonalities to suit the music - perhaps a brighter tone for baroque, a darker tone for more romantic music - this can be done by using different reeds, different oboes (Royal vs. Regular Loree for example). I often find myself selecting reeds based on the demands of the music.
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Author: HautboisJJ
Date: 2007-12-01 06:06
I can see your whole point here. The most valuable things that i have learned over the past few months in conservatory has been to make reeds that WORK instead of reeds that sound round and fat (dark?), in fact, reeds that work often sound "dark"! I like RESONANT reeds, responsive, capable of many dynamic possibilities, and literally creates vibrations in one's fingers when played on even at the softest possible dynamic. To achieve that, i have had to dig through a lot of substantially concrete information, very scientific things, and i have since improved improved tremendously on reed making though still far from what i want to achieve.
Holliger in an interview with the IDRS once famously desribed how he felt so angry after a recital of his when students approached him to talk about reeds instead of the music that he played. He obviously made the most flexible reeds which allowed him to expressed whatever he wanted to and it did not always result in very "dark" reeds.
Howard
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-12-01 13:09
Quote:
I found in general that people just want a reed that works WELL where they don't need to do much but stick it in and blow! This is particularly true since most of the people have day jobs, and aren't professionals, and therefore need an even better, more finished reed than a pro would because they're not necessarily in the best of shape (and need a reed that covers their insufficiencies.)
And a fervent "amen!" to this. Back when I was still experimenting with factory reeds, I used to sit there and stare at a reed from a new maker for a moment and think, "Please work." So yeah, that's it exactly--all we want is a reed that works.
Last week I was tidying the Junque Box and came across a Marlin Lesher "Pro" reed that I had been completely unable even to get to sound when I received it, let alone play on, and so had tossed it in the box. At the time I chalked it up to my undeveloped embouchure. "Ah," I told myself, "You're just a beginner, no wonder you can't get a 'Pro' reed to sound."
But now with my increased expertise concerning what goes into a reed, I was able to see that the reason it wouldn't sound was--it wasn't finished. The tip was hardly scraped. Obviously Lesher is marketing their "Pro" reeds to someone who is prepared to do a substantial amount of adjusting. But it didn't say that in the WWBW catalog, so I assumed that a "Pro" reed must be a really good reed.
Which I suppose it might be, after a pro had got done tweaking it.
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2007-12-01 14:43
Holliger is SO right on that...i usually don't bring my reed knife to rehearsals - I pack three reeds that are good enough with the expectation that one of them will stand up to whatever nature or man throws my way, and if not I just play through the reed's deficiencies and focus on the music. And yet...and yet...when my reed sculpting efforts occasionally pay off with one of those "wish you could clone it and throw away your reed making kit" reeds, it's a bit like getting a little divine intervention from above! There's a mystery to those little buggers which is either part of the oboe's great charm or a curse, depending...!
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Author: Schell
Date: 2007-12-02 03:26
Frankly, I am appalled that you would say "stop worrying about tone y'all and just find the music." What musicality is enjoyable without a good tone? You can play all the nuance you want and do all the dynamic-contrast that everyone is so interested in and no one will care if you have a tone that sounds like crap! Tone is the single most individual characteristic of a person's playing and thus the area that has the most room for expression. I could listen to an oboist with a great tone play one note and enjoy that infinitely more than someone playing "musically" with a good tone. There is no musicality without good tone. John Mack said that the tone must be the vehicle for the music. Without that vehicle (or with a crappy one) the music's going nowhere! The reason that oboes have a reputation for not sounding good very often is perhaps because people aren't worrying about their tone enough.
ashle
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-12-02 03:49
Why is that appalling?
I'm not saying that tone should be disregarded - I'm saying it should not be the focus when practicing/performing music. My point (as is stated/agreed with, later in this post) is that the reed must allow a musician to perform the necessary nuances and phrasing that they want to perform. A good tone will naturally come from that because a really good musical line can onlyexist once all the basics of performing are satisfied: rhythm, intonation, pitch.
If the intonation of a note is perfect, chances are it will sound pretty good. BUT it will most likely happen only if
a) the musician is physically capable of playing a note in tune
b) the reed is built to play in tune.
Unfortunately - and I know some people disagree - a nice warm sound by itself IS NOT MUSIC. I'm sorry - it's just a nice warm sound. Nothing musical has been accomplished, no "story", if you will, has been told. If perhaps a nice fuzzy sound would work well in a particular piece, then by all means. Sometimes, however, a nice warm sound might not convey the right character...and if one doesn't spend the time figuring out "ok, what EXACTLY is needed here to make this CLEAR to the audience what is going on...etc" then spending time fussing over getting a dark fuzzy reed is such a waste of time!
"You can play all the nuance you want and do all the dynamic-contrast that everyone is so interested in and no one will care if you have a tone that sounds like crap!"
Really? Could you name me ONE musician who has impeccable phrasing but a bad tone? Perhaps the problem is the listener - if all people ever listen for is how fuzzy and warm someone's tone is, and never listen for the integrity of the music...then really..why perform for them?
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-12-02 04:28
Quote:
Could you name me ONE musician who has impeccable phrasing but a bad tone?
Sorry I don't know any names off hand, but I have the impression that there are lots of them out there, all busily recording themselves in their bedrooms with wobbly webcams, and posting the results on Youtube. ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2007-12-02 14:14
Consider the following from an article on Ralph Gomberg, who thought tone was the most important element:
HERE
Quote:
Oboists -- again, Americans especially -- tend to become obsessed with the qualities of reeds, routinely discussing fine distinctions among varieties of cane. Thus the joke making the rounds at the camp: How many oboists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but he may have to sort through 30 or 40 bulbs to find the right one.
along with the next few paragraphs. In particular, look at what he has to say about Holliger's tone!
also from Gomberg:
Quote:
"Anyway," he says, "there is no one tone. There are tones. There is a Mozart tone, which is different from a Wagner tone. The Beethoven tone is the hardest of all."
He talks about the French school of oboe playing: penetrating, nasal. The German: pretty limited; accurate but square. The Italian: singing quality but musically a bit naive. The English: jaunty, expressive, with a tone tending to be a little wide and glassy. The Russian: don't even talk about it.
Post Edited (2007-12-02 15:00)
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-12-02 20:27
That's a very interesting article, but unfortunately it is obviously american-biased - i.e it's not really an objective look at things.
"We're trying to get a reed that has voice quality, that can change quality. And when you get it, it's a happy moment. But that's all it is, a moment, because next week you're out looking for the same thing all over again."
This is what I mean by building a reed that can do all the nuances/phrasing that an oboist wants. Tone color is, in fact, part of nuance and phrasing, isn't it?
To my original point of "dark reeds" - many oboists sacrifice this vocal, changing quality in the reed for a "dark" sound. An oboist's best tone comes from a reed on which they are completely at ease, and there's no faking this.
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Author: vboboe
Date: 2007-12-02 20:45
... so OK, d-oboe and bobo, assuming there's a playable working reed to one's satisfaction, are you saying that since it's the player who changes the way the oboe sounds, darker, lighter, brighter, richer, etc., then the playable workable reed's timbre itself doesn't really contribute significantly to this process?
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Author: kdrew922
Date: 2007-12-02 20:54
In response to Max's post, tone is almost certainly the most subjective element of music. If you listen to a hundred of the greatest players in the world, they all have an excellent sense of rhythm and pitch, they can all make a note stop and start just when they want it to, they all have an expansive dynamic range, virtuosic technique, etc. But the one thing that no two of them have in common is tone. The sound that I love, someone else may hate. The sound that I hate may be someone else's favorite. So when you hear a tone that "sounds like crap," remember that the rest of the audience may be loving it. It's best to learn to appreciate and enjoy all different kinds of sounds, so that tone alone does not bar one from enjoying a performance.
I'm always disheartened when I hear some fellow American oboists dismiss Heinz Holliger as "a mere technician" who they presume is not interested in creating beautiful music... just because he prefers a different kind of timbre! Think of how much they would learn if they could just get past their prejudice against a different kind of sound and learn to understand all the incredible things he is doing with the music!
When I listen to an oboist with a sound that is not quite what I would prefer for myself, I listen just as if I was listening to a different instrument. I would be quite disappointed if my tone was anything like that of the horn player Peter Damm or the gambist Jordi Savall, but that doesn't keep them from being a couple of my favorite musicians, nor does it keep me from appreciating the beauty of their sounds, even if their ideal timbre is not what I would seek for myself.
Cheers,
Drew
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2007-12-02 23:17
Well, here I go away for the weekend, and you all get into the best discussion in years on this board!
Somebody about twenty posts back said something about the sound you hear in your head vs. the sound someone would hear from across the room. I agree that things do sound different to the player than to the listener (just as the phenomenon of hearing your own voice on a recording sounds different than you think it does in your own head). So, listening to yourself play on a good recording device can be enlightening.
A few weeks ago, before I was scheduled to do a cut on a friend's compilation CD, I did just that -- I systematically listened to myself playing excerpts of my piece on one reed, and then another, using my little Sony mp3 recorder (very high quality recording). I was actually very surprised to hear how much difference I could discern between the various reeds (these were all "good" reeds). What surprised me the most was that reeds which felt perhaps a little stuffy to me were the ones that sounded the very best on the recording.
Would these same reeds sound the best in live performance, or in every venue? I don't know the answer to that, and I do think that is a very important question. I do know, though, that for the recording, I chose a reed which minimized the upper partials (aka, a "dark" reed), and they tell me (I STILL haven't heard the CD!) that it came across very well.
I wonder if the tendency toward dark, darker, darkest in reed choice has to do with what we hear on recorded sound, rather than live sound?
Susan
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-12-03 13:58
And I would also like to point out that you can't really, completely, judge by what an artist sounds like on a recording, because generally recording equipment leaves out some of the harmonics that the human ear perceives, but that the equipment either doesn't pick up, or picks up inadequately.
I had a graphic illustration of this just a couple of weeks ago. My daughter plays clarinet with the local youth symphony orchestra this year, and I went to their concert. And one of their numbers was what I think of as a "party piece" for violin and orchestra, with a local, well-respected violin teacher as the soloist.
And the violin was just a COMPLETE revelation to me. All my life, I'd always disliked listening to string quartets and violin concertos and sonatas on, first, vinyl, and then tape, and finally CD, because it just sounds so squeaky, and metallic, and shrill. Even famous violinists like Isaac Stern just left me cold--too squeaky, too metallic. You can hear that the strings are made out of steel wire, and there's some guy scraping away on them with a bunch of horsehair, you know?
But I'd never heard a violin played in real life. Never.
So sitting there, 50 feet away from an actual violinist, I was AMAZED at how...warm...it sounded. And melodic, not metallic. Suddenly, in a flash, I totally comprehended why people rhapsodize about it.
But none of that comes through on a CD.
So, similarly, a lot of oboe probably doesn't come through on a CD, so I think it's a mistake to judge, say, Holliger only by his recordings.
And I would also like to say that my embouchure isn't at the point where I do much more with it besides "get the reed to play", and even I can tell that each reed is subtly different from the next one, and some of them sound shriller, and some of them sound breathier, and some of them sound uncannily like a clarinet or flute, especially on the upper Eb-F, and some of them don't.
But they all sound like an oboe.
And I'm beginning to think that the difference is mainly in what the reed feels like to play, not in any particular objective quality of sound that's produced. Each reed offers a different sensual experience to play--but they all still sound like an oboe.
So maybe we shouldn't be talking about a dark or bright "sound", but a dark or bright "feel".
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2007-12-03 20:02
-- "Quote:
"Anyway," he says, "there is no one tone. There are tones. There is a Mozart tone, which is different from a Wagner tone. The Beethoven tone is the hardest of all."
He talks about the French school of oboe playing: penetrating, nasal. The German: pretty limited; accurate but square. The Italian: singing quality but musically a bit naive. The English: jaunty, expressive, with a tone tending to be a little wide and glassy. The Russian: don't even talk about it." --
Oh for heavens sake! This reminds me of a comedy show where they showed that as long as you pretend to be awfully well known and an expert, you can say just about anything and immediately have hordes of people nodding and agreeing with you.
Italians play with a singing quality? You should meet my teacher! ;-)
But definitely not naive!
Steve
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2007-12-03 20:23
you have to remember that quote is from about 30 years ago!
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Author: oboist
Date: 2007-12-03 21:33
i think i will add my 20 cents..))
I came to the point:we are confused with colors-bright-dark-semibright,etc.
oboe is soprano voice instrument.does anybody ever heared DARK soprano voice?
I think it would be ALTO ,maybe MEZZO,but not a soprano!bad reed can be noisy,not balanced,racous,stiff,dull,sharp,flat,unstable.
as an opposite,good reed will be centered,comfortable,vibrating,ringing,stable and flexible.
we can wish sounds WARM maximum..but not "dark".
just an opinion.
misha prosmushkin,ass.principal oboe,new haifa symphony,israel
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2007-12-03 22:33
<<does anybody ever heared DARK soprano voice?>>
Oh, yes! Yes, indeed! There are just about as many varieties of soprano voice as there are sopranos!
Just offhand, I am aware of categories of the soprano voice routinely categorized as being "dramatic", "lyric", "coloratura"," "spinto" -- and I am sure there are more, as well as gradations of these. The dramatic soprano is indeed a dark voice, while the lyric is perhaps more singing in character, the coloratura lighter and more agile in character, and the spinto produced with a more forward focus.
Often, you will hear someone described as a "light lyric" soprano -- which is somewhere between coloratura and lyric. And then there is the mezzo-coloratura (which was my own particular realm), which is a distinct vocal type, but sometimes difficult to differentiate from a lyric soprano.
The same sort of categorization happens in other vocal categories. There must be even more kinds of tenors than there are sopranos! (Just spent the weekend at the Lyric Opera in Chicago, immensely enjoying a phenomenal production of Handel's Julius Caesar which featured no fewer than three (count 'em!) fabulous COUNTERTENORS -- which, if you didn't know what you were listening to, might well be confused with a mezzo-soprano.)
So -- the oboe voice has its colors, as well, don't you think?
Susan
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Author: oboist
Date: 2007-12-04 10:43
hello suzan!
i probably should have explain myself more.of course there is different type of soprano voice and there is no questions a lot of different oboe sounds,but 'dark' in my opinion is wrong explanation of warm ,mellow oboe sound that's what i ment.for me bassoon sounds --"dark",but not the oboe.
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Author: mschmidt
Date: 2007-12-12 18:47
Once when I was playing a really dark reed I was attacked by a mountain lion!
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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Author: mschmidt
Date: 2007-12-12 19:11
Well, I am joining this conversation late, but I just want to add my two cents: I agree that "light" and "dark" are terribly unscientific ways of describing oboe sound, but merely substituting those terms with "more higher partials" and "fewer higher partials" would be a mistake. That's roughly what "light" and "dark" are supposed to mean, but the reason the terms end up being so vague is that nobody actually bothers to correlate their subjective perception of oboe tone with actual data showing the energy distribution amongst various frequencies. So what one person calls "more higher partials" or "bright" might sound different from what another person uses the same terms for. In the absence of any objective measure of energy distribution, merely substituting terms that sound more scientific doesn't make the perception of tone any less subjective. As I've said before on this board, people hear tones differently. That's been objectively established. So as long as we rely on our ears, and not spectrum analyzers (and they have to be damn good spectrum analyzers to distinguish the subtleties in tone we are talking about here) we are doomed to having descriptions of oboe tone which are somewhat subjective, and certainly influenced by experience and socially-constructed understandings.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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Author: hautboisteur
Date: 2007-12-18 17:33
Take Pablo Casals. IMHO, his playing is all about musicality and expression, making him very interesting to hear, but it sounds as if he did not care much about the tone he was producing from his instrument.
Post Edited (2007-12-18 18:01)
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Author: Schell
Date: 2007-12-18 22:26
Pablo Cassals has a great tone- obviously he cared very much about it. Have you heard his recordings of the Bach cello suites?
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Author: kdrew922
Date: 2007-12-20 19:54
These last two posts merely illustrate the extreme subjectivity of tone. What one person loves, another will hate, and vice versa. For this reason it is a serious mistake to sacrifice response/pitch/range/dynamics for tone when making reeds. We can all agree that it is a good thing to play in tune, to be able to make the sound begin and end just when you want, to play effortlessly in the lowest and highest registers, to play with an expansive dynamic range... but we will never agree on what makes a tone beautiful. When it comes to tone, it is best if we each pursue what we prefer, and we can simply agree to disagree, without claiming that this or that player's tone is "bad." Pablo Casals probably had precisely the tone he wanted, whether we love it or hate it. But if he had sacrificed control for tone, today we'd be saying, "Pablo who?"
Cheers,
Drew
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