oboe knife sharpening report

[brettgrant99]

Here I posted about 5 years ago about oboe reed knife sharpening.  It seems like a million years ago.  Somehow, Ken remembered that I had posted about it and asked how it was going.

The short story is that it isn't.

Here is the long story.  Click away if you don't want to read it.

I think that the reason my daughter picked oboe was that it was unique and difficult.  After her senior year in school she decided that she was basically done with music and that it was time for college.  She had no further interest in performing, marching band, or taking lessons.  Part of the issue was that her teacher moved to California, and she didn't like any of the three other teachers that we tried.  She still plays the piano, but no longer competes in it.

At first, I was a little annoyed, an oboe and all the accessories were quite pricy to acquire.  But at some point I have to let go, so I did.  I was able to sell the oboe for close to what I paid for it.  So the use of the oboe cost me about $200 for four years.  Just a large deposit.  The oboe specific stuff I sold to her original teacher in California at about my cost.  So no real money lost there.  I kept the DMT stones that I had bought.

The knife shown in the post was donated to the school.  With the environment in the schools, I wasn't comfortable with her carrying a knife.  In my mind it was an essential tool to properly play the oboe.  In the administration's mind it a weapon that would have, if she had been caught, resulted in her expulsion.  Nothing teaches no responsibility like not allowing any responsibility in the first place.  Therefore, it was donated to the music teacher, who kept it in his desk drawer.  To my knowledge, it never harmed any students.

The original teacher was very skeptical of the knife.  She admitted that it was sharp, but still considered the knife unusable.  I am not sure of why, she would never really articulate.  I suspect that like many of us, myself included, there is a natural resistance to change and things that are different.  I would like to think that if I had put in more effort, I could have worked with her to come to some conclusion, but I didn't.  I was too busy doing other things.

So I now have no oboe knives in my possession.  My daughter is a sophomore at Northern Arizona University studying Mechanical Engineering.  She works in the lumber department at The Home Depot.  She told me last week that she is planning on going to SE Asia over the summer of her junior year for fun. 

She is doing well.  I am doing well.  We are just not doing oboe stuff anymore.  I'm sorry if that doesn't really help anyone in sharpening, but if you need some info about oboes, I still talk to her original teacher on occasion.  Let me know if I can help out.

[Ken S]

Brett,

The joys of being a parent.  I suspect an oboe knife is no more lethal than the food and snacks served in the school cafeteria, and much less dangerous than the students driving to school.

I am surprised oboes and bassoons are not illegal. Society would be safer without them.

Given the choice, I would choose two hundred dollars for oboe training over breaking even with an electric guitar anyday. (Pardon my bias; my daughter plays the oboe.)

.ken

[Ken S]

I received a funny personal message (PM) this morning. It read:

"Given the choice, I would choose two hundred dollars for oboe training over breaking even with an electric guitar anyday. (Pardon my bias; my daughter plays the oboe.)"

Careful there pardner.    There is a few of us rednecks around. A steel guitar is very hard to beat.

Touché. My apologies to our brother rednecks. No slight was intended. My comment concerned acid rock "music".

Ken

[stevebot]

Reed knives, whether for double or single reed instruments, are not used sharp as we know it. They are used as scrapers and are left with a burr, one step short of what we would consider sharp. Direction of the burr depends on the handedness of the user. They work with a stone right at hand and give the knife a few swipes whenever needed. As the knife wears the bevel gets wider and harder to sharpen.
Double reeds are the most critical. We saw the oboe player in the Cleveland Orchestra pull out his knife and adjust his reed just before the performance last night.  Many oboe players supplement their income making reeds.
When I "sharpen" a knife for a reed player I am really just thinning it to make the bevel thin and re-sharpening easier. Most reed knives are hollow ground like straight razors, and the Tormek 10" wheel is nearly perfect for fitting and grinding that hollow. Just lay them flat and grind. A caution from personal experience - watch your fingertips. The wheel is slowly and painlessly sand away your fingertip until it is bleeding.

[Ken S]

Having enjoyed the rich Cleveland classical music tradition for many years, I remember when members of the Cleveland Orchestra shared their talents as fundraising items for WCLV, the Cleveland commercial classical music radio station. At the time, my daughter had just begun oboe studies. John Mack, the legendary longtime Principal Oboeist, offered a lesson in reedmaking. John Mack was renouned as both an oboeist and a reedmaker. ( He also taught the oboe master class at Juilliard.) What a rare opportunity. It would have been like studying photography with Ansel Adams or the Tormek with Torgny Jansson.

Ken