Playing the oboe isn’t easy. Reedmaking isn’t always easy either. So how do you stay focused and know if you are really making progress, or just spinning your wheels? It’s funny, because this is something I always notice in hindsight. Usually at the time in question, I either feel incredibly overworked or just plain discouraged. [...]
Read MoreFlarp
One of the most common mistakes made by young oboists (and maybe old oboists too) is playing on oboe reeds that are just too heavy for that particular player. I’ve been there, and I have certainly done that. And I saw many of my colleagues struggle with the same issue, especially when we were in [...]
Read MoreScraping an oboe reed blank is a little like creating a shell for the reed to live in. It isn’t really an oboe reed yet, but it has to be a good enough shell so that the reed can eventually take shape within it. It seems like a rather abstract idea now, so just remember… [...]
Read MoreLet it be known that I like band directors, and that without mine long ago I would not be sitting here writing about what I know about the oboe. He was (and probably still is) a wonderful man who encouraged me, taught me what he knew but then was humble enough to say that he [...]
Read MoreThere are many excuses for not making your own oboe reeds, but in my opinion, one of the poorest excuses is money. Let’s face it, playing the oboe is an expensive proposition. If you haven’t realized it already, then let this be your warning. If you don’t want to spend any money at all, then [...]
Read MoreQuestion “How do I know what my oboe reed strength is?” Answer I never bought into the whole reed strength phenomenon, so I don’t know what to tell you. Make your own and it won’t matter. If you have to buy a “strength” just remember that harder doesn’t mean that you or the reed is [...]
Read MoreTwas The Day of the Concert Twas the day of the concert when all through Sue’s house, the sound of her reed making was waking her spouse. And the noise from her scraping and clipping and crowing, was causing the pain in his head to keep growing. He said, “Don’t you think you could stop [...]
Read MoreEvaluating Your Reeds No matter how you do your initial scrapes, every reed goes through a period of evaluation and refining scrapes based on crow, appearance, and overall characteristics. Hopefully, you have a gouge and shape that suit your individual needs and work well together, you've got a well formed blank, and you've started to [...]
Read MoreJust got back from taking the kids to “Out of Africa…” It’s a zoo/safari hidden in the middle of nowhere in Cottonwood AZ. I have to admit, I’ve been to a lot of zoos and THIS left them all in the dust. I saw more animals (lemur, lions, leopards, rhinos, bear, and more) in a [...]
Read More“We’re swallowed up only when we are willing for it to happen.” -Nathalie Sarraute The beginning of the school year is often the beginning of the work year as well for many oboists. For the last few months, you may have had an outdoor concert or two, but nothing too serious. Now the phone is [...]
Read MoreWhen you’re looking for a good reed to play a solo performance, just remember this: Make sure you can play the reed out of your ear. That means the reed should be easy enough to get through your piece 2 or 3 times in a row without getting tired. So if your reed has you [...]
Read MoreIt’s amazing what 4,000 feet will do to an oboe reed. 30 days ago, we moved out of the mountains of Flagstaff Arizona. Flagstaff Elevation: 7,200 feet above sea level. Now when you’re an oboe reed company, that type of elevation can be a real deal breaker. It was for us. So we stopped selling [...]
Read MoreWho painted this picture of virtuoso oboist Johann Christian Fischer?
Read MoreI 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 [...]
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How do you know if you'll like an oboe reed before you play it? You can't. When the rubber finally hits the road, it hardly matters if the reed is a great one, perfectly customized to your every desire, if it just plain doesn't work well for you. 
My name is Maryn Leister. I am a graduate of the Juilliard Pre-College Division and the Eastman School of Music, where I was a student of Richard Killmer. After graduating from college, I lived in Nashville, TN, then headed to Knoxville, TN, New York City, and finally Chicago...
