The choice of the first piece to show off the oboe was inspired by Wikipedia (and by the last post as well), namely by their mentioning the description of the oboe’s voice in Angels in America as sounding like that of a duck if the duck were a songbird.
The piano, by the way, gets the prerogative, whenever it is on the stage – while one can argue whether or not an oboist can change the pitch of each note, a pianist most definitely cannot, so in this case the oboist tunes to the piano and then everybody tunes to the oboe. Most agree that tradition plays a big part – some of reasons were correct in the past, and even when things changed (the late-comer clarinet seems to have as steady a pitch at least), oboists were reluctant to relinquish the privilege/duty. ‘easiest to play overtones on’) and there’s even a website to refute them all. Well, Google to the rescue, I thought – but not quite: there are several reasons floating about (‘the most steady pitch’, ‘the most carrying tone’, ‘situated at the very center of the orchestra’), some of them contradicting each other (‘fewest overtones’ vs. While thinking about this post, I realized I didn’t have a clue as to why this was the case – it seemed to be one of those self-evident facts which no one ever cares to explain. The oboe is usually the first instrument you would hear at a symphony concert, as this is the instrument all the others normally tune to. The oboe is also way more recent that the flute – it appeared in the mid-17th century, with the modern version coming from the 19th century (and with minor improvements continuing through the 20th century). These pieces of cane, called reeds (doh!), are usually cut by the players themselves, to suit their individual needs, as the reeds affect in a most direct way the tone color and pitch. Seriously, though, as opposed to the flute, the oboe is a double reed instrument, which means its mouthpiece (the part the player blows into – bottom right in the photo) consists of two pieces of cane vibrating against each other.
The length, which is difficult to judge from the photos, is about 62 cms, so slightly shorter than the flute – but it’s really not about the size (and anyway, comparing flutes to oboes is like comparing apples to oranges, and I’d better stop before I get completely buried in bad similes/clichés/metaphors). I couldn’t find one really satisfactory photo this time, so this and this are two more, to show it from different angles. Hello! Continuing from the last post, let’s move to the next woodwind instrument, which is theĪ photo to start with, as before, to see what it looks like:
0 kommentar(er)
