Learn to play the Oboe, that wonderful and beguiling woodwind instrument! We will address all of your needs to start the oboe, from putting the instrument together and taking it apart properly, to forming an embouchure, to working through fingerings. There is even more information at www.PlayOboe.com.
Nice lead in music ! Good descriptive vocabulary, inspires confidence in the viewer. This lady knows what she is talking about ! I was proficient years ago but gave it up and am now renewing my technique. Thank you for sharing in this medium what should otherwise have been an expensive lesson.
An elderly oboe maker from my city (Trento - Italy) told me that the price was very high due to the woodworking. The internal hole, in fact, is conical unlike other instruments such as the clarinet, in which it is cylindrical. For this reason the milling must be done progressively waiting for the wood to season, to avoid cracks and to finish the instrument it takes a few years. :-)
My fiberglass Selmer Signet oboe cost my folks $850 at Chuck Levin's back in 1978. It revolutionized my tone after a year playing on an awful rental Linton oboe.
Of course cheap is subjective, especially when considering the amount of $1500. The oboe, like most of its woodwind brethren (bassoon, clarinets, etc.), is a precision instrument the relies on technicians for precise adjustments which cannot be automated.
This is very helpful. Your patient and clear presentation can help establish or also reinforce early technique...esp. for those of us who will embark on a largely self-taught path with no access to a local oboe instructor!
Does anyone have any idea why the bell of the oboe is sphere-shaped instead of hyperbolic? Is that why it sounds so muffled, compared to other woodwinds and in particular most folk double reed instruments?
Wrong. Oboes are expensive because people keep paying high prices for them, which drives the cost up. I play the oboe and it sickens me how much it costs.
But you also have to consider that the saxophone is metal, while good oboes have many years of maturing to do before they can even cut them. Also, you have to consider demand. There are way more saxophones both in production and in the market because it is a more commonly played instrument as well as way more forgiving in small manufacturing errors. If they mess up a sax, they can melt it down and start over, though I suspect most of it is machined so probably unlikely. If an oboe warps or cracks, or they drilled a hole wrong, they have to start over with a whole new blank. Howarth only makes about 800 per year, of which only 200 are professional. When you take into account how few manufacturers there are, how long it takes to make, the rarity of the wood, the hours/days of fine tuning, then it is unsurprising that the cost is so high. Unfortunate, but that is the cost of playing the oboe. If you want a cheaper instrument, choose something else. One guitar maker can make 20,000 in a week, while it is estimated that that is how many oboes are made in a year worldwide.
Excellent overview. I always found it interesting that Americans usually prefer the Loree oboes, but all over Europe and much of Asia we tend to prefer the Marigaux. Thank you for this very interesting video.
Howarth is becoming more popular than Loree in many places. Rigoutat has been more popular in Europe than Loree for a while. Yamaha is actually becoming quite popular. Loree is going out of style; as they should. They're oboes are too mass produced. I wouldn't want a new Loree.
When I first started, I played on an old plastic Buecher. Then I borrowed my college's F. Loreé AK... WOW! It was like going from grape juice to a vintage red wine from France. Played like a dream and my tone improved 100 times over.
Thanks for this video. After playing the oboe on and off for 31 years (mostly off), I'm considering picking it up again and learning to make my own reeds. I'm seeing, through this video and other places, a real need to understand the reed well enough to make one and certainly adjust one.
