I've been away for ages, but I can't believe I've missed this thread... great idea!

I own 2 oboes, a Marigaux professional oboe which I love dearly, and a student Buffet which got me to a merit on grade 7 and which I am currently trying to get rid of... listening, Sarah?!
I play on all sorts of different reeds. I've tried the Chinese ones (Ke Xun Ge? is that them?) and one that I borrowed from a friend was lovely, but every single one in Howarths when I went reed-shopping was horrible and breathy. I have 2 Howarth professionals that I'm breaking in now, and they are unwired, which really does make a difference to sound. I've also been pretty impressed with the Licenza reeds, which are made by a lady in Sheffield, I think. I once dabbled in the Winfield reeds with the brass staple, but didn't really like them all that much.
I'd like to be able to make my own reeds, but as a permanently broke teenager, I can't even afford the toolkit for it, which is pretty hefty as it is. But learning how is on my list of "stuff to do in life", so I'll get round to it eventually.
I've never actually played a Cor Anglais, but I was once lucky enough to have a go on an oboe d'amore. These things are halfway between an oboe and a cor: if you play the fingering for an oboe C, it's an A on an oboe d'amore. It's sooo nice, but they're so rarely used (only in Bach's Christmas and Easter stuff) that there are never orchestra parts and pro orchestras just hire them for a couple of weeks when they need them. They feel really nice and smooth to play, and the purchase of one is on my "stuff to do when I'm an eccentric millionaire" list - it's about £6000 for a half-decent second hand one. Sigh.
I don't know about oboists bursting blood vessels in their neck, but I do know a clarinet player (because I don't know how to spell clarinetist... 1 t or 2?) who burst a blood vessel in her eye once.

I've tried an oboe d'amore as well as a cor anglais (my teacher has both) and I didn't like it nearly as much as the cor anglais. I know what you mean about it being "nice and smooth to play" but the cor anglais is even more so and it is just that little bit lower (play a C and you get an F) so it is a wonderfully mellow sound.

Re toolkits, the most expensive thing is the knife and it is worth hunting around as prices vary wildly - although they are probably very good quality Howarths is not the cheapest place to buy knives. Mandrels sometimes come up for very little on ebay.

OK, you've piqued my curiosity - I've seen pics of an oboe mandrel, what do you do with it??

You put the staple on it while you are binding the reed on. As I expect you probably know from reading these threads, the staple is the corked bit that fits in the oboe - find a picture of a staple (without the reed) and you will understand why you need a special tool to put it on.

Ahhh! Right. Getting it - takes a while .

Just found an exceedingly interesting page which any reed-makers or potential reed-makers might enjoy...

http://www.yefchak.com/reed/

I know this is a bit off topic...but Welcome back oboemeister, I'd been wondering where you'd got to ???

I know the 3 pieces that I'm doing for my trinity g5.

A. corelli-barbirolli - concerto for oboe. 4th and 5th movements(gavotta and giga)

B. macpherson - romance(no21 from 'first repertoire pieces for oboe')

C hinke - study 20 p13


and I had a chance to play 'gabriel's oboe' in the lesson

Yay

hello, not really posted here before. i'm doing oboe just now at birmingham conservatoire and deciding what to do for my end of year recital. just now i'm thinking about playing the grovlez sarabande and allegro, telleman sonata in G minor, and maybe a couple of the britten metamorphoses. not really sure yet but i'll have to decide soon cause it's in the middle of next month. anyone got any ideas?

Do you have a completely free choice or do you have to pick from a list?

OoOO do you know Will Joy?

(sorry slightly )

i dont play the oboe but my aunt does. shes really good and she plays in an orchestra. i wish i learnt more instruments. i had a go on my aunts oboe and i can blow a note! (its better than nothing i suppose!) i had a go on my mums flute as well and i can only just make a note. just out of interest, how do you make reeds?

Coco

I read it somewhere that...

first, you cut a piece of x(i forgot) mm cane in quarters, and fold 1 of the quaters in half. You then scrape the cane to a certain thickness and, and cut the top bit off, and shape it and attach the cane to a round piece of cork- covered thing

This process is called gouging and you need a gouging machine to do it with - it is actually scraping the inside of the cane. Most people who make their own reeds buy the cane pre-gouged.


Actually you bind the reed on to the staple (cork covered metal tube) before cutting the end. Ideally you leave it to dry for several days after tying it on before you do anything else. You then scrape the reed, trim the end and adjust it (and carrying on adjusting it for ever it sometimes seems to me).

For a humorous article about making oboe reeds have a look at "My mother married an oboe player" which is available at:
//www.colorado.edu/Publications/DR/DR6.4/mother.html

...and buying pre-gouged is a lot cheaper. Gouging machines are expensive - we're talking maybe a couple of thousand pounds, brand new. They also come in 10 mm or 10.5 mm beds, so you need to know which size of cane you're going to use before buying.

I've just been given a brand new oboe on loan - yay! Its incredibly shiny Its a buffet - i presume a regular student one.

So shiny.....

New toy!

Always fun

Yay! Just in time to wreck my embouchure again for my ALCM at the end of next month!

D'oh!

Be sparing with it. Why've you been loaned it?

At least it's shiny - new shiny toys = always good...

I was asking the technician why they had an oboe in the cupboard, as there is no one in the college who plays, and the instruments are there for spares. I asked if I could have a go and he said just take it for as long as you need and just return it at the end of term just incase I dont come back for 3rd year or something! He didnt really know what an oboe was I dont think. I could probably swap my old one for this lovely shiny one and he would never notice. I wouldnt though - that would be very bad of me

cool - no best not swap it, tempting as it might be!

It might be new but Buffet oboes are only ever student oboes (and it could well be resin). They are not one of the oboe makers.

I guess if you have a cruddy student model then a new student one will still seem a million times better

Its made of wood. I know its not the best. I just really wanted to see if it was any different to my own one, and it isnt. Sounds exactly the same even though mine is very old with ring keys.

Have either of them got all the trill keys? And what about things like an F resonance?

I'm learning vibrato a the moment, but I can't seem to keep my body still when pushing with my diaphragm.(especialy my head) It moves slightly everytime my diaohragm is pushed

My teacher sais I should keep normally still when doing vib.
How can I stop this problem?

I'm not an oboe teacher oboe, let alone an expert teaching vibrato on the oboe, but it sounds as though you're trying a bit too hard and forcing the diaphragm, which in turn is causing your body to move as well. Try using a slightly softer reed and see if it makes the vibrato feel easier.

Has your teacher offered any advice on preventing body movement?

Whoa there! Buffet oboes aren't only student oboes... yes, two of my students play them, but my mani instruments is a Buffet Greenline pro. It has it's issues (but don't they all?!), but it's got me to the age of 27, halfway through an MMus in performance (one yesr down, one to go!) and we're doin' ok!

This thread is way into the list, so it's time to rivive it...

So... How's everyone's oboe playing getting on?
I have my grade 5 in 5-6 weeks.

I've had even less time to practice oboe than I have clarinet..... Yikes!

My daughter is waiting until the next session. There's no hurry for her to take grade 5 and her teacher wants to work on tone so she has a strong foundation to move on from.

Well, I hope my teacher trusts both my tone and my technique.

I am starting to be able to switch on and off vibrato at will.
I am having more and more moments of "Wow, is that really me playing?"
I am trying not to think about the fact that the music school shuts down for the summer at the end of June and that lessons don't start again until about September 20th.

I'm glad your playing is coming along well


Oooops. I havn't practiced vib for quite a while now...

My warm up is meant ot be
1. Long tones
2. Vib practice
3. BREATHING TECHNIQUE(i can't seem to breath out without making a lot of noise. How do you breath out quietly?)
4. Scales and Arpeggios(There's a lot of them to learn)

Actually, I don't practise the vibrato and wasn't taught it. It just sort of "appeared" about three or four weeks ago and then kept disappearing everytime I thought about it. I can only do it now by thinking about the sound I want to produce, not by consciously doing anything physical.

I wouldn't worry too much about breathing out quietly (dixit my teacher as I am very conscious of breathing out noisly as well). I think breathing is largely edited out of CDs but if you go to a concert and sit very near the front you can hear the professional oboists breathing out too. They are not as noisy as me but definitely more noticeable than any recording I have.

My warm up is long tones of individual notes with and without dynamics and long tones of slurred intervals, starting with octaves and working up to two octaves.

my best reed has now got a chip out of it, and I'm frustrated because it sounded crummy today, but was ok at the weekend. AAAAAGH! (that feels better... thanks for bearing with me)

However I've just discovered that the first 2 movements of the Handel sonata in C minor that I was battling with are on the grade 8 syllabus, so I'm greatly relieved. I couldn't really get the allegro moving fast enough with tidy articulation...so to discover it's listed for grade 8, when I'm not a grade 8 standard player has really helped my confidence!
Now I'm working on a couple of Ferling studies and the first of the Schumann romances, which I'm really enjoying, it's a beautiful piece of music...and doesn't seem too difficult technically, but to play it lyrically is a challenge, quite exposing really. Any advice would be gratefully received!

I just got sent two boxes of reeds from Howarths, and one of said reeds looks as though it has a slight split in it...I know some reeds look like they have splits in and don't and that some even with a split in can be playable...mum thinks I should send it back...it was £15...but I feel like I should try it, rather than send it back when it's fine...however I know if I play on it, I probably won't be able to send it back

so...do I send it back and look an idiot if it isn't actually split....or try and play on it and be gutted if it is split and doesn't work properly...

Oh, the joys of a double reeded instrument...

xoxox

*bassoonist invading topic*

Anyways, How did an clarinetist manage to bust a blood vessel in her eye? That has to suck >.< Chev, if it looks like it has a crack in it then send it back, even if it doesn't most double reed players will understand the importance of the reeds condition.

I would call Howarths and make them aware of your concerns regarding your reeds...

let them know and see what they advise...

good luck

Kindest regards

Andrew

Thanks Sergeant_Chronos and A.U.K, I'll phone Howarths today and see what they suggest

In the mean time, back to breaking in the nice new ones hehe, meh (<----my face after playing on a new reed for too long lol)

xoxox

I don't even play the oboe but have the "pleasure" of breaking in new reeds for my children

ouch! lucky children!!

xoxox

What fun for you! I hope that they can start breaking their own reeds in soon... speaking of which I have a reed I'm breaking in...can't wait!

I have never had to break in a reed the way everyone else seems to be describing it. When my teacher gives me a new reed he always gets me to try it in the lesson and adjusts it slightly if need be.

I had an interesting "mind over matter" experience in my lesson this morning. My teacher said that I had got to a stage where I should be able to produce the same tone whatever the reed and that my definition of a favourite reed should no longer be the reed that gave me the nicest tone but the reed that required the least effort to produce my usual tone. According to him, you do this by not thinking about the reed at all and by concentrating on the way you want to sound. I was rather sceptical (but then remembered that I do vibrato just by thinking about it) and after a couple of attempts I found I could swap between my favourite and least favourite reed without the tone suffering.

wow....I wish I could do that!!

I just play on the one which sounds nicest at the time and then I get used to it, and almost cry when i break it

I just hate breaking in new reeds!!!

rrrrrgh!

That was me until this morning.

About eighteen months ago, I had one favourite reed "die" on me - it just stopped vibrating I had played it so much. My teacher broke it off and threw it in the bin (he reuses the staples when he makes new reeds). I couldn't believe he could be so callous with what had been such a wonderful reed.

I don't make my own reeds, but I do find that a new reed does feel rather stiff, and I need to play it in before I have a real idea as to it's strengths and weaknesses...but since I've only just got back to having lessons, I'm rather wary of attacking a good reed with my knife. I'll make small adjustments but nothing major as I really don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to wreck a potentially good reed. Also I've just moved on to playing a different makers reeds, and I'm beginning to find out which strength of reed suits my playing at the moment.

I hope that one day my technique will be sufficiently strong so that I can produce a good tone no matter what the reed.

***now goes off to do her oboe practice***

I have every single reed i've ever played on stored in a box....how sad am I!!

lol, but it's nice because some of them have things written on the staples like where i played it or how I broke it or random things about band rehearsals hehe, and it's like my box of oboey memories hehe...it's getting a bit full now though! xoxox

I can understand reeds having sentimental value but don't really feel I can ask my teacher to keep a reed that no longer works - as I said he reuses the staples and I think I have a really good deal with him anyway. I pay him about £22 for the year and he supplies me with as many reeds as I need. I always have four at any one time (a couple of months ago I had six as he wanted me to start playing on harder reeds and so provided me temporarily with a whole range of gradually increasing hardness), he has replaced them as my embouchure has strengthened (rather than waiting till they wear out) and he adjusts them for me whenever I want.

Jeez >.> I wish the bassoon topic was this active lol. Anyways I like the reed I have but I need a new one and I want to try another brand. What do all of you mean when you say your breaking in reeds?