Who painted this picture of virtuoso oboist Johann Christian Fischer?

I remember this reed lesson pretty well. Even though it happened almost 15 years ago (eekkk…). The idea was to give myself a simple “cheat sheet” that I could refer back to as I made reeds. It was basically my profile of the “perfect reed.”

I created a quick list of the major things I was looking for in a good reed.

Mind you, this was 1993… so I was still really new to reedmaking.

Take a look at the list and tell me what your thoughts are.

Now soon after this lesson, I remember my teacher giving me an exercise to practice that really helped me.

The exercise was to make a reed on looks alone. That meant making a reed by working to get the reed looking perfect… without actually testing it.

Most of the times I tried this–once I got the reed looking right–it usually played pretty well.

The point of the exercise was to keep me from becoming my own worst enemy. You know those times where you notice a problem with the reed and start scraping… Then you notice another problem and start scraping somewhere else.

And pretty soon, you get yourself in trouble and the reed goes in the trash.

Now understand, this was just an exercise. A reed doesn’t have to look great to be a great reed.

You can click on the image to get a closeup view of the notebook page.

Here’s a page from my Oboe Notebook (one of them) back from a Masterclass I took with Richard Woodhams.

It’s funny to look back at old things like this. It makes you realize how far you’ve come… and gives you the encouragement you need to go even farther.

Take a look at the page, it’s still good advice from a master. To see the large version (that you can read), just click on the image.

This masterclass was on April 13, 1995… just a few months before I started at Eastman.

Over the years, we’ve collected a ton of excellent questions about oboe reeds, oboe playing and other oboe stuff.

We’re finally going to answer them… some of them. (We have hundreds and hundreds of them.) But instead of just answering the question for the player who asked it, we’re publishing the answers for everyone.

It’s called the BIG Book of Oboe Questions and Answers.

And we’re trying something new this time… a pre-publication offer, which includes a 40% discount.

You can read about the whole thing by clicking on the link below:

Get the details…

Got a question recently about how to tie your knots when you’re making an oboe reed. It’s hard to explain in words, so take a look at the video and see if it’s clear.

This video is actually part of our reedmaking course, The Beginner’s Guide to Making Your First Playing Oboe Reed… In 9 Days or Less