C Series hypothesis

Saturday April 19 2008

So I’ve been playing this C series oboe that is being lent to me by Peter while my oboe is in the shop with Mr. Weber. A few posts back I mentioned that it felt slightly blown out in the left-hand notes, but I thought it was a good instrument.

Well, since that post, I would say that I have really been going through a gigantic revolution (and revelation) in my playing with this C series oboe. Yes, it doesn’t like to be “blown at”, particularly in the high notes as a modern instrument likes, but it does like to be “breathed into”.

I’m not sure how I can explain this, but the oboe is clearly a gem in my eyes, and has taught me a lot about overblowing and efficiently blowing, how I think about making reeds, and how to change colors and textures.

Another idea that could get me into trouble, but just in my conversations with a few select experts, they seem to imply I’m on the right track:

I hypothesize that back in the E series and before, people didn’t use the air as we do today. One exercise I once heard Tabuteau assign his students was to sit at a dinner table and place a candle 5 feet away and blow on it and bend it but not blow it out. This assignment was to do two things: force a student to focus his/her air so that it could carry 5 feet, and second to force a student to be able to balance his/her airstream in a “hovering” state. Blowing out the candle simply showed that the student could blow loudly, but not necessarily control his or her air.

As the demand for “darker”, “heavier”, and “thicker” oboe sounds evolved, the oboes became thicker in bore, and Loree began to develop their AKs and eventually the Royal. Meanwhile, there became less demand for ultra flexible air and tone, and more demand for the round, dark thick sound that we often associate with Mack’s sound. Tone got darker, but flexibility in the wind and playing was decreased because players demanded more resistance built into the instrument instead of building it into their own reeds (which basically requires more Loree players to be really good at making reeds). With the added resistance and thicker bores, oboists began to classify more of the older instruments as “blown out” since they didn’t have the same amount as the new instruments, when in reality their modern instruments had evolved instead of the older instruments devolve.

(The technical idea of an oboe blowing out is if the bore shape has drastically warped or changed. Shrinking causes toneholes to become out of place or to take the air differently, thus changing the instrument from its original factory state.)

In the past week, I’ve learned how to NOT… overblow the instrument, but rather to resonate with it and to breath into it. I’ve made several reeds for my friend’s AK and the C series and the latter clearly requires reeds which have slightly more resistance and refinement in them. This obviously is not as handy as making reeds for a modern instrument (which don’t need quite as perfect tips, integration lines, etc) but once I do get a reed just right for the C series, there’s been no better feeling. I’ve gotten more compliments on the C series oboe these past two weeks than I have gotten in the past 6 months combined.

I couldn’t figure out why this was, since the instrument feels “lighter” and “brighter”, so I stuck my H2 handheld recorder out into the audience of our performance hall during our last orchestra rehearsal to hear what the audience heard. The result was a more fuller, resonant, filled in sound. Amazing; more overtones were traveling outward resulting in a thicker and more complex tone.

One final note: I put my Weber bell on it and it worked MUCH… better than the original bell. I’ve been trying my Weber bell on some other instruments such as an AK and a DM, and it doesn’t work better. I called Mr. Weber to discuss this and he explained that yes, the Bore adjustment was designed for the C series, so one would expect to gain the most from the reaming if they indeed had a C series oboe to ream. After I get my instrument back, Peter wants me to send this C series oboe right down to Mr. Weber where his instructions are, “Make this oboe like your oboe!” I’m sure Mr. Weber is going to have lots of fun reaming it out and perfectly fixing all of the little things that are slightly off on this oboe.

It really makes me think what I’m doing on my modern oboe, and if I should get off it and start playing on a C series!