A book by its cover / l’Habit fait le moine

On forums and Facebook posts as well as simple ordinary conversation over the past 30 years, there is a belief that a competent oboist will end-up sounding the same on any instrument s/he plays. This makes a certain amount of good sense because there is so much more than the instrument in the sound: reeds, embouchure, air stream (general body physique) and even hall acoustics play a huge role in how the instrument will sound. Moreover, I do believe that spending lots of time with an instrument will attenuate the differences, leaving personal style shine through. But I think people exaggerate when they say the a different instrument makes nearly no difference at all. Also, maybe spending more time with an instrument will allow a musician to aim for a different sound by letting go of old habits, necessary for one instrument, but not another	Ol’ Faithful / Vielle Branche (Lorée) Dr. Jones (Pan-American – Conn)	Des discussions sur les forums et messages Facebook, même des causeries depuis 30 ans laissent croire qu’un hautboïste compétent sonnera pareil sur n’importe-quel instrument. Ceci a un certain bon sens: le timbre est affecté par l’anche, l’embouchure, le souffle (le physique du corps) autant que par l’instrument; même l’acoustique affecte le timbre. De plus, je crois qu’à la longue, on s’habitue à l’instrument et les différences s’atténue, laissant le style individuel du musicien transparaître. Mais je crois que le monde exagère lorsqu’on dit qu’un instrument différent ne fait presqu’aucune différence. De plus, peut-être que passer plus de temps avec un instrument permettra de viser des buts différents en permettant de lâcher prise de mauvais plis qui étaient jadis nécessaires pour un instrument, mais pas un autre.
Meet Dr. Jones and Ol’ Faithful! Ol’ Faithful is that Lorée I’ve been using for my You-Tube recordings up to now. I’ve had it almost all of my oboe playing life and seems to me much better than new Lorées I’ve been trying. While I had it rejuvenated and revoiced by D. Teitelbaum (half of Laubin inc.) in 2010, I got a 1921 Pan-American (Conn) oboe on e-bay, just so I could blow some notes and work my fingers. It is a beginner model, but it’s sound opened my horizons on what is possible and made me realize that my struggles for tuning and dynamics might not be entirely my fault: even though Lorée is a very respectable professional instrument, nothing guarantees that it will actually help performance, especially because a great instrument for one person does not always “mesh” with another.	Computer Speakers, mobile devices or cheap ear buds might not allow you to hear the difference in tone colours. Les haut-parleurs d’ordinateur, téléphones ou tablettes et les casques d’écoute bon-marché ne permettront peut-être pas d’entendre la différence de timbre.	Dr. Jones et ma Vieille Branche! Vieille Branche est le Lorée que j’utilise jusqu’à maintenant pour mes You-Tube. Je l’ai depuis presque le début de ma vie hautboïstique et il me semble bien mieux que les nouveaux Lorées que j’ai pu essayer. Lorsque je l’ai fait remettre à neuf par D. Teitelbaum (la motié de Laubin inc.) en 2010, j’ai acheté sur e-bay un Pan-American (Conn) de 1921, juste pour que je puisse souffler un peu et faire marcher mes doigts. C’est un modèle débutant, mais il m’a ouvert les horizons sur ce qui est possible et que mes épreuves avec la justesse et les nuances ne sont peut-êtres pas de ma faute. Mon Lorée est un instrument professionnel très respectable, mais rien ne garantit que sa qualité m’aidera, étant donné qu’un excellent instrument pour une personne ne l’est pas nécessairement pour une autre.
Recording Wreck! I know at least one instrument vendor who was asked to make recordings for clients who did not want to make the long drive to his store without knowing if it would even be worthwhile. He declined to do so because it is REALLY hard to capture the different tone colours on a recording. In fact, I spent a whole week playing with recording settings on both my microphone and computer software as well as different layouts in the room – the 2 instruments always sounded nearly identical in the recording! Also, trickery does not work: normally a recording is passed through a “low pass filter” to remove the distortion from room reverberation: when I do this, even my best contrast recordings end-up making the two instruments sound the same.	Summer 2010 : rebuilding my oboe mouth and fingers while Ol’ Faithful got overhauled in New-York. (Lunch time at work every day!) Été 2010 : refaire ma gueule et mes doigts pendant que ma Vieille Branche se faisait mettre à neuf à New-York. (Midi à l’ouvrage à tous les jours!)	Enregistrements Enrageantes! Je connais au moins un revendeur d’instruments avec des clients qui demandent des enregistrements pour savoir s’il possède un instrument avec un timbre pour justifier la route. Il refuse de le faire parce que c’est VRAIMENT difficile de capter les différences de timbre en enregistrement. En fait, j’ai passé la semaine entière à jouer avec les ajustements sur mon micro et mon ordinateur en plus de la disposition de ma pièce – les 2 instruments sonnaient toujours presqu’identiques sur l’enregistrement! Tenter de tricher ne marche pas: normalement on passe un filtre “passe-bas” sur l’enregistrement pour éliminer la distortion dûe à l’écho de la pièce. Quand je le fais, même mes enregistrements montrant les contrastes les plus nets finissaient par faire sonner les 2 instruments pareils.
Microphones are NOT ears! Now wait, does this mean that the recording is right and ears are hearing what we want to hear? Uhhh, no. The old notion that a camera sees the truth will be quickly debunked by any professional photographer and the same is true for microphones. The ears are VERY different from any kind of microphone, no matter how sophisticated and humans also hear with the whole body: bones, skin, even fat and muscles react to air vibrations and transmit everything to the hearing centers. Conclusion: I have HUGE respect for recording sound engineers!	Reed used in the recording. Anche utilisée dans l’enregistrement.	Les micros ne sont PAS des oreilles! Minute-moumoutte! Est-ce que l’enregistrement prouve qu’on entend ce qu’on veut? Aaahh non. L’idée qu’une caméra capte la vérité est rapidement démentie par un photographe professionnel; il en est de même pour les micros. Les oreilles sont TRÈS différentes que même les micros les plus sophistiqués et nous entendons aussi avec le corps entier: les os, la peau, même le gras et les muscles réagissent aux vibrations dans l’air et contribuent à ce qu’on apèlle “entendre”. Conclusion: j’ai un ÉNORME respect pour les preneurs de son!
What makes the difference in sound? I don’t actually know. For sure the bells are different and I suspect Dr. Jones is more conical (smaller bore at the top, same at the bell joint, but much more flaring at the bell). But wood thickness also plays a role and God-knows-what-else might affecting the tone colour. Dr. Jones is a very old beginner-model (probably made for marching bands) so it will never play as easily or with the versatility of a pro. model. But it did serve a great purpose, it really opened my horizons at what a different instrument could do for me.		Que fait la différence dans le timbre? Honnêtement, sais pas. Sûrement que les pavillons jouent un rôle et je soupçonne Dr. Jones d’être plus conique (perce plus mince à la tête, pareille à l’articulation du pavillon mais un pavillon beaucoup plus évasé). Mais l’épaisseur du bois joue aussi un grand rôle et Dieu-seul-sait-quoi-d’autre peut affecter le timbre. Dr. Jones est un très vieux modèle à débutant (probablement conçu pour les parades) alors il ne jouera jamais aussi facilement ou avec la polyvalence d’un modèle pro. Mais il a très bien servi à m’ouvrir les horizons à ce que pourrait me valoir un nouvel instrument.

5-minute reed : experiment successful !

I was going to write about the master class for adults at the University of Ottawa Oboe Event, but then I made this experimental reed that deserves blogging! Actually, at the end of the master class, prof. Hamann (Chip), mentioned group lessons where everyone is expected to make a good reed in 15 minutes, so it still fits the bill. My account of the master class next time.

Experimenting with shapes and lengths

Following my blog and/or the BBoard, people know I like to experiment with shapes and stuff in the hopes of making an easier reed that sounds more “baroque-esque”. Well try this one on for size. But 1st, repeat: this is an experimental reed, so yes there are flaws with it, but there are also some really cool things about it.

Bad stuff, good stuff

The picture above shows (and the video below sounds) the reed and another blank just like it. Because this is an experimental reed, I’m not worried about these 3 flaws:

1. it plays really flat (about 30 cents flat, so I guess A=435?)
2. it is unstable in the usual 1st octave-key notes
3. there is some buzz remaining in the sound

The buzz can be explained by the fact I spent only 5 minutes scraping it… more like 3, actually. The flatness and the instability can be explained by the measurements: it is 73.5mm in total length on a 45mm staple. This means it is very long cane compared to the norm, so stability might be better ensured with thicker cane than what I used (the usual 0.60mm). The shaper is also actually for oboe d’amore (Kunibert Michel 750), so really wide tip and really big belly. Finally, it is tied on Chiarugi #7 (really big … those of you who use Lorée staples would freak!).

Reed test–5 minute scrape.

But for the good part, if I can get the buzz out, this is starting to sound like my ideal. I’m curious to try this reed in a Marigaux: many people have stated that pretty much any reed will play with great stability. The dynamic range is great, it was really easy to scrape and the response is also great (with a rather thick tip). I’ll need to confirm if it still plays this well tomorrow, but here is what it sounds like: 3 minutes of scraping a freshly chopped blank!

Binding Reeds and Blade Offset

Results from tying reeds.

A few weeks ago, someone at the BBoard had asked me to show high-definition pictures of my reeds tied using the Cane Guide (le Guide Roseau) and pre-binding. Look at the very large size of the picture by clicking on them: this will bring you to my wife’s photo stream where you can choose “original size”.  The binding colors are reeds with the following characteristics (from left to right):

1. Yellow (neon green): Shaped with a Weber Wide (0.60mm gouge) and tied using the Cane Guide on a Stevens #3 thin wall staple. This reed has not yet been chopped (only scraped for blank storage).
2. Blue: Kunibert Michel 7.25 shaper with my own 0.57mm gouge tied on a Chiarugi #3 staple using the Guide Roseau. This reed has been scraped a 1st time and is playing remarkably well. A very slight slipping can be noticed. Evidently, it is not slipped at all near the thread and the blades are rather loose. I probably tied it too long and not tightly enough. At 73.5mm total length, it plays at A=440 to A=442 without any problem.
3. Gold: Kunibert Michel 7.25 shaper with my own 0.59mm gouge tied on a Chiarugi #3 staple without any binding aid. This reed was finish scraped several months ago. There is a good sized offset on this one (it often slips even more while playing) that flares from binding to end. This means I did not hold the blades well aligned when binding. The reed still plays very freely, though the dynamic range is limited. I think the limited range is due to the offset, but the free playing is from a good selection of nicely flat cane.
4. Purple with 2 white bands: RDG –2 shaper (0.61mm gouge) tied on a Chiarugi #3 staple without any pre-binding aid. There is a moderate offset on this one which inhibits both free playing and dynamic range, otherwise, the reed is stable and responsive. The binding looks higher on this one than the others: most of my reeds finish the winding 1-2 winds before the end of the staple, so this one might be tied all the way to the end. It could also have half or one wind past the end, which would explain the inhibition. But usually, reeds that wind past the staple  behave much worse.
5. Blue with 1 yellow band: Kunibert Michel 7.50 shaper with my own 0.58mm gouge on a Chiarugi #7 staple. Not yet chopped (only  scraped for blank storage).

Making good reeds is easy!

Testing the blue reed.

I have irked many people by saying this before, but I stick to that statement! It’s all about selecting the proper cane and shaper and binding properly. Here are some sound clips of the blue and gold reeds for a sound comparison. Note the blue one took my less than 5 minutes to scrape to get to this point! Also note that I am not making huge efforts for dynamic expression: I just wanted to get an idea of how they sound. Be careful: the 1st time a reed is scraped, it often plays very well quickly. Do not try to get it perfect on the 1st “sitting”: reeds tend to harden-up after a day and its best to do a 2nd scraping the next day and a 3rd scraping a week later.

Testing the gold reed.

On the 2nd and 3rd scraping, the reed should become as good as it gets, tough some adjustments can be made after that still.

Most important, never try to make a decent reed “perfect” when you’re tired and/or frustrated: you will ruin it irreparably!

Theory of Reed Slipping (offset in the binding)

The following  is explained at length in Jay Light’s book and the question has been asked on the BBoard. Many prolific oboists of the American reed technique do on purpose to offset the blades of their reeds while binding. I don’t like this mis-alignment, but it works for a whole lot of people and I did get a few really good reeds that way.

The question asked if it is OK for the cane to slip such that both sides of one blade are inside the other blade. Well, if a cane is correctly shaped and folded, this is impossible! For good slipping, when tying a good piece of cane, the symmetry will make one edge of each blade overlap the other. In other words, if only one side of the reed is slipped, something is wrong; if one blade is fully “inside” the other, it was not folded in the middle of the shape! So in other words, my preference is for the last diagram in this slide-show; the 2 middle diagrams are OK by American standards and the 1st is just plain wrong.

One thing I should note is that many people believe it is necessary to offset the blades to prevent air leaks: this is completely false as most of my reeds that leak also have offsets whereas those that are tied in perfect alignment never do.

Oboe Reed Shaping and Fibro-Fog

Lovely day today: sunny and warm day
=> so staying in the comfortable cool shade of the TV room!

Ugly stuff first,

The past 2 months were generally rough, but this week was especially harsh on the fatigue aspect. Most (not all) sufferers of fibromyalgia also get chronic fatigue syndrome.... again named that way because the medical field can find no explanation for it: nothing physically wrong! In other words, for no reason at all, we are always tired, not sleepy, but tired as if we had been chopping firewood all day.

Fibro-fog is when just being awake is like moving through a thick fog of confusion and physical resistance. Remember the Claritin commercial of a person taking out the garbage in a deep-sea diving suit? That explains it perfectly! The simplest tasks like getting milk for the coffee becomes confusing: exhausting to open the fridge door, and then not knowing what to do next! This is very different from dementia, Alzheimer's or senility because it is completely related to the physical aspect: as soon as the muscular crisis is abated, full mental faculties return; plus we are aware and feel ridiculous about the issue. But it’s not as easy as taking pain medication to restore mental faculties, the body has ways of insisting on giving us a hard time.

Occupation Hap-Hazard

Luckily, for my employment, some activities become so mechanistic and automatic that they can be done correctly with only some slowing down of the process. Even mentally complex tasks like debugging a program can be done. But if you ask me to get up and get printed pages across the floor, I will likely get lost on the way!

So I hesitate to embark in musical performance with an ensemble: I cannot predict when this will happen. There are also evenings when I get home and even watching TV becomes exhausting. I can really thank God for my truly wonderful wife who copes with full understanding: she just plays along with it, not making any big deal - which helps me accept it quite a lot! There are forums for fibromyalgia sufferers, but the number of hours in a week is limited and I get MUCH more benefit from participating in the BBoard and the Facebook group "Oboists in the World". Feeling like a musician again is powerfully uplifting!

Now the good stuff.

In terms of the sound quality and performance factors like stability, the shape and the binding are everything! The scraping has only one purpose: to let the cane do what it wants to do naturally – vibrate in response to the blowing. I find the choice of shaper and its combination with the staple size have even more effect than cane diameter, gouge thickness and any specific measurement around scraping. Please note that my wife put many more excellent images of shapers and more on her Flickr site.

Which shaper to choose is really an individual preference because it is a matter of responding to body parameters like teeth structure, characteristics of the lips, how the air pressure is channelled from the lungs to the mouth and very importantly, their interplay with the brand of oboe and even the individual instrument. This is why advanced oboists spend considerable money on shaper tips and to find the perfect staple.

There is really no right or wrong in choosing shapers, it’s all about what works for you: start with what your teacher recommends, then experiment and decide for yourself. For my part, and Europeans I know (French and German) who have tried the same, Kunibert Michel shapers (Germany) on Chiarugi staples (Italy) are a winning combination, vastly superior to all others. Comparisons will be left for another time.

Finally, there are different types of shapers, which mean different ways to use them. The most common are interchangeable shaper tips that fit on a reusable handle: these require you to fold the cane over the tip. There are also “straight” shapers in which you insert non-folded cane: by completely covering the cane, there is no chance of nicking it or messing the shape. Finally, there is a new (expensive) machine that works on the principle of the straight shaper and is designed to roll-out hundreds of pieces of cane in very little time.

Despite the attractive idea of simplicity and safety with straight shapers, there is good reason why the fold-over interchangeable tips remain most popular: folding the can flattens it near the fold which resembles the real silhouette of the final reed whereas the straight kinds leave the cane curved; which means the reed will be much wider than the shaper leads to believe. The difficulty with manufacturing straight shapers (almost nil with fold-over tips) is that the important symmetry is from end-to-end: this ensures that when the cane is folded exactly the same curves meet, which is necessary for proper sealing and support for vibration.

With a little care, the fold-over tips will always yield excellent results, the only important consideration is a sharp cutting tool with no nicks in the blade: the tip really wrecks a blade! Many oboists use disposable razor blades, I use a retractable blade knife and break off pieces after every cane shaped.

With shaper tips, there are again 2 types, and this makes really no difference at all in the quality of the final shaped cane: it’s just that they are used slightly differently. New-school shapers (have been around for generations!) have “ears” that introduce the blade to the sides of the cane. They leave “ears” on the cane that are easily removed after the cane is tied on the staple. Old-school shapers have no such ears and the shaped cane (ready for binding) is fully shaped. With ears, the cane must be sized to fit before closing the handle-clamps whereas no ears allows free positioning of the cane. In both cases, its just a matter of getting used to the moves.

These videos (made from still images) show how I cut the cane after folding to fit the ears. I cut the cane to ensure the thick center (dark line in the middle) remains centered. The last video shows a typical technique: the shaping is done with the knife perpendicular to the shaper, but to ensure a “clean cut” a few extra strokes are made with a slight (very) angle: this makes a smooth side of the cane.

With heads that have no ears, I just center the line on the shaper itself. The two handles I use illustrate another consideration: the handle clamps. The shorter clamps are mounted on a tightening screw which makes it easy to reposition the cane; however, dents are left on it. With the German type handle, the clamps cover the entire cane are secured with a ring. This allows exactly enough pressure to secure the cane without denting it; I also like to use the ring as a leverage thumb-rest to more easily control the knife. With ears on the shaper tip, many people rest the ears on a table for better stability.

Conclusion:

Shaping is really not complicated, but the choice makes a HUGE difference. The choice of handle and tip description is entirely a matter of personal preference.

Blow that tooth hole!

O.K., three weeks have past after the extraction of my wisdom tooth. So here I go trying to play again. There is still a huge hole in my gums where my tooth used to be, but the dentist, a registered nurse and two very experienced oboists have reassured me that all should be fine. (One of these oboists had his jaw-bone cut for the extraction and still played after 2 weeks!) So get back on that oboe! Besides, the weather is getting good which means I need to start my lunch-break-in-truck rehearsing again.

FINALLY, recorded my real sound!

“Maybe” by Thom Pace.

One contributor on the BBoard requested sound clips of the other contributors so we could get an idea of the panorama of sounds that we have. I don’t really like my other You-Tube recordings because of recording issues I explained in previous posts. Also, someone reminded me of this lovely tune and I thought it would be a good comeback. This is a You-Tube of the original for the movie and TV series Grizzly Adams.

I finally recorded what I consider to be the same sound I hear when I play…. that is, if you’re listening on speakers with the same specifications as those that come with a Dell Dimension 9150 computer! It also sounds fine on my home theatre system, but if I listen to it through my lap-top: not the same…. through my Sony EX35-LP ear phones: not even remotely the same… and so on and so forth!

First play after 3 weeks post tooth extraction.

The layout was to sit at my computer desk with the Zoom H4n on the desk, pointing straight at me but me playing to the side (towards the door open to the hallway and stairwell). The microphone sensitivity was at 15%.

This is not what I consider my best sound, but it’s close to it. The dark warm tone is 80% of the way to my favourite but the dynamic range and stability are a little bit under. That’s O.K. I’d better get my gums used to the pressure slowly with easy reeds. This reed was shaped with a Kunibert Michel 7.25 shaper and the cane was gouged with my own gouger using my latest blade profile.

Oboe results with hole in mouth:

There’s only a little discomfort with my gums not fully closed yet. I feel a pulling sensation in the hole, that comes from the pressure of my cheeks holding back the air pressure. For that purpose, I’ll do only a few minutes at a time with more breaks.

As for the oboe sound…. this has little if anything to do with my tooth extraction, but I really need to work my breathing more. The sound is pretty good, but I can tell the fullness is not what I’m capable of getting. I can kind of hear that my thorax is not expanding very much, especially in notes of the 1st and 2nd octave keys. I cannot blame it on the tooth pulling because my thorax feels the same as always, I guess I’m just paying more attention to it now that I’m consciously observing the feelings in my gums.

Wake up from the dream….

That’s what it feels like to return to work after taking the week off between the holidays…

I got to blog a whole lot and I am REALLY grateful to all of you who have troubled yourselves to read it: I hope there was something useful or interesting in it for you. I’m certainly

Crowing and other reed tests.

not stopping, but it will slow down a bit.

But I could not slow down too fast. The Oboe BBoard just got a couple of really good posts on the subject of crowing reeds and tone production. One person has contributed valuable videos on the techniques associated with these. He looks young, but if you can grasp the importance of what he’s showing, you’ll find deep experience there!

What he shows is what I learned to do when I went from a 2nd class student to a sought player with reputation of playing well… if only I had listened to one of my profs. and taken up the Baroque Oboe instead of leaving the scene!!!!

Attack responsiveness and air support.

So I really encourage you to look at these. I’ll add a link to the whole discussion to the Threads Page too before next post. In the mean time, since I have to work at my day job now, I’ll favour practicing over blogging!

Again, may the joy of easy oboe playing bring beautiful sounds to your ears and lovely feelings to your soul!