Oboe Reeds: Why Are the Blades Different Lengths?

When I clip my reed to shorten or balance it, I always offset the clip so that the two blades are slightly different in length.

I do this very intentionally, because we don't play the oboe straight away from our face
)____
)

But rather, angled downward

)
) \
\
\

So as I approach my mouth with the reed, I want the shorter blade facing towards me:

\
\ \
\ \

So that the longer back blade, or upper blade, can "catch" the air as it flies from my mouth into the oboe, and funnel it down into the instrument

===== \
\ \\ \
\ \\ \

Instead of interrupting the air and forcing it away from the oboe

====] \
\ \
\ \

To accomplish this, I angle the reed against the cutting block as I clip

which forces the blades to offset, so I can clip straight down and wind up with an appropriately uneven result.

Occasionally, to make the articulation a little zingier, I will clip straight, and try to minimize that difference between the blades.

But I seldom find that result to be perfectly pleasant. It may solve the immediate articulation problem, which may be the thing I needed, but in my experience this technique sacrifices depth and warmth in the tone.

My close up photos might make it seem like there's a BIG OBVIOUS DIFFERENCE between the blades, but sometimes I have to hold them up really close and squint to figure out which side goes on my lower lip and which on my upper.

To solve that I always choose the side of the reed with the "crossover" in the thread to be the lower blade. This gives me a visual and tactile clue as to which way to play the reed. I can plop it in without looking and know that I'm doing it right - which in turn makes it really look like I know what I'm doing. It makes me appear unfussy.

Has this been useful or interesting? I've made a PDF of it - for your reference, or for your students. You can download it HERE!

Comments

Zoe's Musical Beginnings

I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies. Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked. I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel. If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance. Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street. She makes us sing along. She loves it when we clap at the end. When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later. Her immediate interest is in ...

Cleaning Your Reeds

Updated: I've posted a video of my plaque cleaning technique HERE ! Oboe reeds are made from organic material, and over time it is inevitable that they will age and change. The first few days of change are usually quite welcome, as you break the reed in by playing and the opening gradually settles down to something you can be comfortable with and the response becomes more and more predictable. You might even hit a plateau where it appears to be perfectly consistent and reliable for several days! But after that, the reed seems to be on a constant gradually accelerating downslope, until it eventually collapses into a sharp, non-responsive, mushy mess. We can rejuvenate the reed during this time by cleaning it, and can often extend its life as well! There are three good ways to do this. First, least invasively, you can just run some fresh water through and over the reed AFTER you play each time. Go ahead and rinse that reed in the sink, shake it as dry as possible, a...

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

We took a vacation this summer. This is not news to anyone in my life - anyone who knows me or especially Steve on Facebook followed along with all of our pictures. We took our travel trailer out to Arizona - via St Louis, Tulsa, Amarillo, Roswell, Santa Fe - and then stayed a week in Clarksdale and Flagstaff and visited some ancient pueblo ruins, Sedona, Jerome, the Lowell Observatory, the Grand Canyon. We swam in swimming pools, lakes, and icy mountain streams. We hiked. Eventually we came home again, via Albuquerque, Amarillo, Tulsa, and St Louis. (our inventiveness had somewhat worn out). After a week at home we took another trip, and drove to Vermont via western NY and the Adirondack Park (stayed an extra day to hike a mountain), lived four days in East Franklin VT, and came home via Catskill and eastern Ohio. This vacation felt different from all of our previous ones. In the 21 years we’ve been married, I can name on...

ProneOboe

Search This Blog