We all know the story of “The Ugly Duckling”. The ugly duckling grew up to be an extremely beautiful duck. Well, not to compare oboe Reeds with ducks, because we all hear that way too much, the story makes sense when you think about oboe reeds. There is a book by a man named David Ledet that looks at the actual oboe reeds of the best players in the world. Some of them are truly ugly with large gouges and scrapes in them that are very unsightly. However, when they are played by those same players, they make some of the most gorgeous sounds on the oboe in the world.
I say all of this to make sure that you know that oboe Reeds don’t need to be pleasant to look at to be beautiful to play. I have had customers who wanted to send their oboe reeds back because they did not like how they looked! My next question to them was “have they been played yet?” The answer was no! I do guarantee my oboe reeds, but I need them to be played first to see if they work. When the customer played them, they decided that they were the best things ever! That is why I bring up the story of the Ugly Duckling.
My oboe reeds tend to be less than beautiful for someone who does not know what beauty looks like in an oboe Reed. I think they are rather lovely because they give such a pleasing sound to my audiences. So when you receive my oboe reeds, you will notice that they are a bit cut looking with what we call windows in the back of the reed and have many other features that you do not find on commercial machine-made oboe reeds.
Try my oboe reeds, and I think you will enjoy them despite the way that they may look. And truthfully, all of the oboe reed makers you probably find on the internet will have very similar styles of oboe reed making if they are from America. The adoption of the cut Windows is something that has been done for a very long time. Many schools of oboe playing in America do it similarly, but perhaps not as deeply cut as maybe I do or someone else does but nevertheless they are doing some type of window.
Have a great day and play pretty!
Kerry