Reed Comparison

Yesterday I made two reeds, Both with Graf #2 (thicker gouge) and RDG 2 shape. One was made with Grimaud, my favorite, while the other was made with Rigotti.

Both of them turned out very well, but it was interesting to note that the Rigotti turned out better. After my previous experiments, I am consistently believing that harder cane is better with wider shapes. The reason: the wider shape takes an “edge” off of the sound that is more inherent with the thinner shape, but the harder cane still leaves more “ring” in the sound. My wife and I both agreed that there is more core to the sound of the Rigotti.

Grimaud is still my favorite cane, and if I needed to make reeds with the 1-C using the Grimaud, I’d probably thicken the gouge a little. But meanwhile, the Rigotti turned out a very good reed.

The following pictures contain “the historic moment” reed on the left, the Rigotti reed in the middle, and the Grimaud reed on the right.

I got frustrated with the camera because it’s really hard for me to keep my hands still while taking the photo, so I was having a hard time getting the back light right to see the windows definition.

Reader Question: Vade Mecum Scales Arpeggios Exercise.

Hey - wondering if you could help me out. So I don’t
own a Vade Mecum (looking to buy one in the near
future, but don’t want to spend the money quite yet).
I want to do some arpeggio excercises…I could invent
my own but Vade Mecum page 1 has a great one.Can you tell me what the basic line looks like? I
know it starts on C major 1st-3rd-5th-octave (CEGC),
but then I’m not sure if it goes
7th-6th-4th-2nd(BAFD),EGCE, or 6th-4th-2nd-lower7th
(AFDB), and then I’m not sure how the patern continues
(back to C, then EGCE, or straight to EGCE, etc).

Sorry, I should have gotten back to you on this. The general pattern.

Major Keys (C major, all 16th notes, transposed for other keys)
C1-E-G-C2 -> B2-G-F-D
F-G-B2-D2 -> C2-G-E-C
E-G-C2-E2 -> D2-B2-G-F
G-B2-D2-F2 -> E2-C2-G-E
G-C2-E2-G2 -> F2-D2-B2-G
B2-D2-F2-A2 -> G2-E2-C2-G
E-G-C2-E2 -> D2-B2-G-F
D-F-G-B2 -> C (Half note w/fermata)

Minor Keys (A minor, transposed for other keys)
A-C2-E2-A2 -> G#2-E2-D2-B2
D2-E2-G#2-B3 -> A2-E2-C2-A
C2-E2-A2-C3 -> B3-G#2-E2-D2
E2-G#2-B3-D3 -> C3-A2-E2-C2
E2-A2-C3-E3 -> D3-B3-G#2-E2
G#2-B3-D3-F3 -> E3-C3-A2-E2
C2-E2-A2-C3 -> B-G#2-E2-D2
B2-E2-E2-G#2 -> A2 (Half note w/fermata)

the numbers of course imply which octave on the oboe (assuming you don’t have a low A attachment.

Perhaps a Preview to the Tabuteau Book?

Found this IDRS archive written by Laila Storch. There’s a brief introduction written by the editor at the time, perhaps Daniel Stolper. At the very bottom of the page it says “Most recently she (Laila Storch) has made two tours with Soni Ventorum for the State Department to South America in 1972 and 1973.” We can assume then that this archive was probably written close to 30 years ago! Is it possible that the Tabuteau book has been in motion for the past 30 years?

Editor’s Note - One of my most serious responsibilities as editor of this journal is to bring to the present generation an understanding of the important contributions of those oboists who are no longer active. The very name Marcel Tabuteau has become a legend, and in discussing the idea of a memoir devoted to him with two of his most distinguished students, John deLancie and John Mack, the name of Laila Storch occurred to both of them; not only was she a Tabuteau student but she was also a close personal friend. Her professional duties at the University of Washington are demanding but she graciously consented to consider this project, and in a recent letter she related this touching incident: “When I visited Madame Tabuteau last summer near Paris, I mentioned this project to her and expressed my feeling of inadequacy to get across a real picture of Tabuteau. She was paralyzed and barely able to speak, but when I asked her if she thought I should do it, she spoke a long and emphatic ‘Out’ (typo, probably “Oui” as in “Yes” in French). You can imagine this made me feel even more responsibility . . . and only a couple of weeks after my return from South America, Madame Tabuteau died. This, added to the realization that it is twenty years in February that he left the Philadelphia Orchestra, has made me feel an even greater urgency to keep the promise. ” I know you will share my pleasure in Miss Storch’s memoir; I hope other Tabuteau students will want to follow her example.

Reed Ramblings

I think the key to getting a thick, covered sound of an oboe reed is the shape of the inner tip layer (the funny hill hump shape). For example if you make it wider and rounder, covering more surface area, it will sound thicker, but will also have more breath resistance. So how do you compensate for the resistance? You scrape the heart flat in a parallel manner as the Mack school teaches. But doesn’t this leave the reed a bit buzzy? Yes, so you have to scrape more out of the windows to make the heart proportionately correct. But doesn’t this lower the pitch more? Yes, so you push more reed into the mouth.

The peculiar reed I made the other day was no longer peculiar when I went and picked it back up. The back was quite large, producing a larger opening than was comfortable. Furthermore, the thick tip didn’t give me the response I wanted while playing on the tip (but I could shove it into my mouth more, putting the fulcrum closer to the back of the heart/meeting of the windows, thus “pushing” down the opening with lip pressure (i.e. biting) thus getting the response and resonance necessary out of it. But I didn’t want to do all of that, and still prefer to play on the very end of the tip. So I thinned the tip, and scraped the heart to close the reed down, which left the heart proportionally too thick, so I ended up having to scrape that, eventually wearing it down until it had the correct opening, response, etc. By then, it was just another typical Philly style reed.

I realized that a major thing in my embouchure has changed since I’ve come back to oboe; I play WAY on the tip. In fact, I think I play about as close to the tip as anyone can.

Why I say this is I’ve gotten occasional comments from oboists where they’ve picked up a reed and said. “Hey, this has a chirp!” And they go on to tongue 16th notes, all with a loud, distinctive chirp to it. Then I pick it up and tongue 16th notes, and there’s no chirp. Chirps which are audible while tonguing usually come from an imbalance in the tip, or a fluke thin spot in the tip that is somewhere in the middle of the tip. They’re quite common, usually not audible from a distance (but annoying to the oboist), and awfully hard to get rid of once they’re there. However, if you play on the extreme tip, your lips often cover the tip, and adding enough padding to cover the chirp. Occasionally it might come out, but usually not.

I remember when I was in college I frequently struggled with chirpy reeds. I don’t think my knife technique is a whole lot better now than it was then, I just think I play closer to the tip.

All oboists have chirps though. I remember hearing Mack play on a chirpy reed. Even on Zupnik’s etudes CD, you can hear that one of the reeds she recorded on had a chirp in it that came out every so often. I think learning to play closer to the tip has given me a lot of help, but this is certainly a biggy.