Valparaiso, Indiana

Archive for the ‘Oboe Reed Adjustments’ Category

As you practice using your knife shaving on old reeds, you will gain experience, discover how best to remove cane from the tip of your reed, and have more confidence in trying to adjust your reeds to improve their sound as they go through the aging process.

# 1

At times the oboe reed can feel to soft.  You tend to over blow the reed, especially in the low register which can produce an undesired high pitch followed immediately by the low pitch your desire.    The sound can be too thin and the pitch and tone in the upper register is too hard to control.  This occurs when the tip is too thin requiring the oboist to clip the tip of the reed using your rosewood block.  When you clip the reed more vibrations can travel to the heart and back of the reed creating the sound that you like.  Be sure your reed has been soaking for at least five minutes before you clip the tip.  Do not clip the tip when the reed is dry.

# 2

Clipping the tip of the reed requires the oboist to align the tip of the reed in the center of your large rosewood block.  using your knife to clip the tip be sure your eyes are above the knife blade so you can clearly see how much of the tip you are clipping off.  Usually this is an extremely small amount of cane (hairline in width); thus, you want you knife blade vertical so that the cane is easy to cut.  Be sure your knife blade is straight across the entire width of the cane. As you push the blade down on the cane to make the cut, put your first finger on top of the knife blade which will give you more strength to make the cut in one move.  If if does not cut immediately you can slightly rock the knife blade back and forth until you hear the cane snap off the reed.  PRACTICE THIS TECHNIQUE MANY TIMES ON OLD REEDS YOU ARE NOT USING PRIOR TO TRYING THIS TECHNIQUE ON YOUR GOOD REEDS.

# 3

Test your reed to see if there is an improvement in the sound.  If the sound is still too thin you will need to cut the tip (hairline width) again.  It is much better to clip a little cane at a time rather than too much.  If you do clip too much and the reed is too resistant you are back to shaving the tip of each blade to find the sound you like.  When shaving or clipping the tips of oboe he “rule of thumb” is to do minimal shaving or clipping followed by immediate testing.  Doing too much clipping or too much shaving at one time requires additional time to correct the problem.  You goal is to find the perfect resistance that gives your reed maximum vibration resulting in a beautiful chocolate-like sound in all registers and good intonation in all registers.

# 4

When the oboist cannot keep the reed tip open (crescent shape) and opening the blades on side at a time does not work, there needs to be the opening of the staple or the metal underneath the thread.  Using your pliers, you want to open up the tip by squeezing the metal portion of the staple underneath the thread.    DO NOT SQUEEZE THE CANE ABOVE THE THREAD.  THIS WILL IMMEDIATELY SPLIT THE CANE.  Squeeze gently using you pliers by placing them on the top  portion of your threat in a position that will squeeze open the sides of your two blades.  You want to observe the opening as you squeeze gently to create a crescent shaped tip opening.  Test your reed.  You may have to repeat this technique with your pliers until  the reed opening stays consistently in a  crescent shape.  Again, you want the resistance to be comfortable and the sound to be chocolate-like.

# 5

Slipping oboe reed blades can happen as the reed ages.  It is important to remove your reed by twisting out of your well by squeezing the cork-NOT THE BLADES OF THE REED.  When you repeatedly grab the blades of the reed to take the reed out or put the reed into your well the blades will shift or slip.  By gently taking your thumb and first finger and sliding the blades in the opposite direction to move the blades into  alignment you can correct this problem.  You may need to repeat this more than once to align the blades.  Check your blades repeatedly to be sure that they are staying aligned before you play.  There is a major difference in resistance, pitch, and tone when your blades are aligned as compared to unaligned.