 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: hautbois
Date: 2007-12-14 12:23
Try filing down the length of the staple (the cork end). Staples can be purchased at varying lengths. I use 46mm with my Marigaux 2001. My finished reed length is 68-69mm. You can also try using a narrower shape, and/or increase the overlap (effectively making the shape narrower).
Elizabeth
Post Edited (2007-12-14 12:45)
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Author: jhoyla
Date: 2007-12-14 12:47
For long-scrape reeds (and yes, I know this is a dreadful generalization) you should aim for about 70-71mm overall length with a 47mm staple. 72.5 sounds too long to me.
Joseph Shalita says in his web-book that one should beware of playing on flat reeds, since the tendency is exactly that - to "lip them up" to pitch, a dreadful habit, easy to acquire and devilishly difficult to overcome.
You say you are "suddenly" flat - how long since you last checked your intonation? A season ago, maybe? :-)
If you like the looser feel that long reeds give you, you can try Hautbois' suggestion of filing down the staple (I did this once, before a concert) and then purchasing 46 mm staples; Or you can try a wider shape (say, a No 3) (and cane with a broader radius, 11mm or larger). These vibrate more than the common No.1 or -1 shapes. You still aim for 70-71mm in length, but you get the broader feel.
And the perennial rider - YMMV - your mileage may vary. you just have to try changing one parameter at a time until you find that magic formula....
J.
PS - let me know when you find it ..
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-12-14 12:59
For me, the most important question would be, have you been flat up till now when playing with others?
If not--if you've been routinely playing in tune with others, or with your teacher, or with a piano, and it's only just now when your teacher brought out the tuner that you discovered you were flat when compared to the tuner--then I wouldn't worry about it. Lots of instruments, and players, can come up a few cents flat when asked to sit there and drone on an arbitrary pitch with an electronic tuner, but in actual practice, playing with other musicians, everything seems to even out and the piece comes out in tune.
And I'd want to know why your teacher chose this point to bring out the tuner? Have other musicians been giving you dirty looks because you're flat? ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
Or was it just because your teacher thought it would be interesting to see how your pitch compares with the cold, hard standard of a tuner, and lo and behold! You're flat.
If you haven't been having problems playing in tune with other people without compromising your embouchure--in other words, if your teacher only brought out the tuner as a sort of novelty or diversion, and not because s/he was trying to show you how flat you really are all the time--then I wouldn't worry too much about it, and I certainly wouldn't use it as the occasion to plunge myself into a crisis of reedmaking self-examination. If your reeds have been serving you well up to now without the piano player rising from her bench in irritation and bashing you over the head with the piano light, then I wouldn't spend an inordinate amount of time trying to re-think your entire reedmaking approach.
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2007-12-14 13:23
First check the calibration of the tuner - it should be set to 440 or 442, or whatever your local tuning standard is. My tuner can calibrate to 415, and from 438-446. So if your tuner is not calibrated, it may give you an incorrect reading.
If on two tuners you are still flat, well - I'd rectify the problem.
Of course, when playing in ensemble you just play, and tune with what you hear, but when practicing you should be able to play in tune with a tuner. That's not to say you just sit there staring at the tuner, but rather, you take occasional glances to see where your pitch is.
The first thing I would do after that is to check the oboe for problems - like a leak. That can cause instant flatness. After that, the next step would be to continue scraping and clipping the reed. Since 72.5 is a touch long (even for a short-scrape reed) you have room to do so. You should scrape until the reed is comfortably easy, then clip it a bit to raise the pitch. Every time the reed gets a bit too hard, scrape it a little more. Keep going back and forth like this, making small adjustments until the reed is finally in tune.
Post Edited (2007-12-15 01:42)
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Author: HautboisJJ
Date: 2007-12-14 13:30
It is worth while to check whether you gain a sort of consistency in your reed making. Open your reed case and if you can't see a sort of pattern that exists then it is going to be difficult to really identify what the problem might be.
I am guessing that you make "short scrape" reeds like me so "fairly long scrape" is a weak generalisation of how long your scraping really is. It may well be an overly long scrape, or, just a reed too long. My reeds with 0.56 gauge and and 11-13mm scrape length and finishing length 72mm works absolutely fine. Anything longer will usually result in lack of response and dullness in high register.
How long have you been playing and how long have you been making reeds? If flatness has never been a problem, it may possibly be some biting that has appeared sometime ago which has now happily and suddenly dissapeared. A couple of months ago i made some reeds which sounded beautiful but was slightly flat (or so i thought). I believed they were simply new so i tried playing into them. Yes breaking in is very important, but if the reeds do not respond with ease with no biting, you must quickly understand that there is something wrong with the reed, no matter how good it sounds. I ended up developing biting habits which took me a month to recover from after realising that it was my reed making that caused all that mayhem.
Howard
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Author: johnt
Date: 2007-12-14 14:31
Andrew,
Before trying anything, clip miniscule amounts off the tip. This may bring the reed right up to pitch. Nothing larger than the thickness of a human hair, please. If that doesn't work, then try more drastic measures. Use a very sharp single edge razor blade & a block (billot, in French). It may take half a dozen tries, but after about the third or fourth clip you should notice a marked difference, what with the reed going gradually sharper. Good luck.
Best,
john
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Author: cjwright
Date: 2007-12-15 02:07
1.5mm is a HUGE difference in pitch, and could solve your problems right there.
As for realizing that this tuning change recently, I'd be curious as to what has caused this drastic change. Perhaps you're embouchure is getting stronger (or weaker) and changing in a way that you've decided that you simply don't want to bite anymore.
What your teacher and what we say here is obviously going to be very different; You state you play on a longer scraped reed, but surely "longer" doesn't mean "American" scrape, correct? I remember playing German like reeds in Korea and experimenting with compromising on a "hybrid" like scrape. That little dusting of bark in the back can make quite a pitch difference.
Whatever you do, make sure it's systematic. Scrape a 4 reeds and chop them each .5mm shorter than the previous. Compare each reed not from the bottom up, but from the top to the bottom; meaning make sure your tips are the same length, as is from tip to the back of the bark. Keep your purportions the same, except just leaving more (or less) bark from string to beginning of the scrape. This should help you to make some important discoveries.
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-12-15 04:28
For what it's worth, if I don't spend time each day playing along with other musicians (I play along with an assortment of CDs), which requires me to play up to pitch, I find that after a few days, when I do go back to playing along with my CDs, I'm flat. Have you been practicing with your loose, relaxed embouchure all by yourself, i.e. without having the demands of playing up to pitch with someone else, even if it's only a CD? Maybe it isn't a fundamental, catastrophic problem, in other words; maybe it's just that you've gotten out of the habit of doing those tiny instinctive corrections for pitch.
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-12-15 20:14
I'd encourage you to spend at least some time every day practicing accompanied, even if it's only playing along with this, or this, both of which I have and enjoy very much, or any of the Hal Leonard or Standard of Excellence oboe method books that come with playalong CDs (I'd go with the second/third books, as the first books will be unbearably simplistic, "blow into this end", etc.)
Baby stuff, sure, but even baby stuff can be interestingly challenging, if you focus on phrasing and interpretation. And it'll give you practice in playing in tune with someone else.
Post Edited (2007-12-15 20:15)
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