Reed Reviews, and the evolution of reeds
Sunday September 14 2008
In searching for some information on reeds, I found this website again about reed reviews, and lo and behold, it rated my reeds! The good news is that I haven’t gotten something less than “Pretty good”, but I found one interesting comment interesting.
Dutchy of the oboe Bboard and a repeat customer made a comment of how my reeds have been somewhat different over 3 orders of reeds, and looking back, I’d certainly have to agree with that. In fact, I think my reeds have gotten better over time. I recent sent some off to Jillian Camwell, and am a bit curious as to what she might have to say of my most recent batch. Hopefully she’ll agree with me that they’re getting better.
One big difference is the change of oboe. I went from Barbara the Royal who was a very reed-friendly oboe and a bit flat in pitch thus requiring sharper reeds (but not as refined reeds), to a DM Bore Loree, to finally a CI Series Loree which needs REALLY… refined, clean scraped reeds. Any flaw in the reed and the CI Loree magnifies the issue ten-fold. This made me become a better reedmaker, and a better oboist.
It did make me think, do professional reedmakers “evolve”, or do they just keep pumping out the same reeds? I recently received a bunch of reeds from Mr. Weber as a gift to help me prepare for some major work I was working on, and they were unlike anything I had ever seen from him. Totally different scrape; windows started way high, very short heart, and longer tips. We talked a long time about why he sent me the reeds (which is a different blog post), but the point was that he was experimenting and evolving his reeds, even after making commercial reeds for decades!
Anyways, I just thought it was an interesting thing to ponder.
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