How to Escape a Reed Making Rut

We oboists and double reed players, in general, must deal with temperamental reeds made from organic material. What works great one month may not work at all the next. These periods of frustration, commonly known to oboists as a reed making rut, are fairly natural but can be frustrating. Whether you are hacking off tips or dealing with leaking reeds, a reed making rut can be navigated by assessing the problem, addressing variables, and implementing a solution. While these ruts are expected, I find it more productive to think of them as a ‘maintenance issue.'”

I have come to analyze my own reed ruts in terms of three categories, or “The Three Ms,” if you like: Mental, Material, and Mechanical. A change in one of these variables can affect the reed-making process—sometimes in obvious ways, and sometimes more subtly. A reed-making rut may start in one area and move to another if we do not step back and look at what is happening within the process. By looking at each category and deciphering how it may be affecting the reed-making rut, we can hope to avoid or escape it without too many casualties, dead reeds, or wasted time.

Let me start by explaining what I mean by Mental, Material, and Mechanical.

“The Three Ms” of a Reed-Making Rut

• Mental: Pressure from upcoming events, personal life situations, fear, pressure, etc. The frustration of being in a reed-making rut!
• Material: This includes the supplies that we as reed makers use to make the reeds themselves. This will include things like cane, staples, thread, wires, wax, etc. The quality of the materials also fits into this category, so while the gouger itself is in the next category, the gouged cane is here, as is the shaped cane.
• Mechanical: This category includes things like gouger setup, knife condition and sharpness, and shaper tip wear. Any tool that is used to make oboe reeds will have a huge impact on the final product.

These three qualities will often overlap. The materials used will be affected by the state of your mechanical tools. The more of the reed-making process we control, the more variables that can go wrong, but also the more ability we have to positively control them.

A reed maker gouging their own cane may run into problems with their own mechanical equipment and have no choice but to eliminate variables one at a time. Their gouging machine may be out of adjustment and creating inferior reeds without their knowledge. Every reed is working improperly due to the gouge, but the reed maker may not even recognize the problem is the gouger. Frustration may settle in within the psyche and create more problems beyond the initial problem. The mechanical status of the equipment used to make the reeds will affect the materials used to make the reeds, and the overall state of reed making may affect the mental state of the reed maker.