Words by:
Alex Allan (oboe WA)
Alex Allan
Photo by: Pia Johnson
I'm buying a brand-new instrument soon. It’ll sound much better than my current oboe, and make playing easier in almost every way.
And I'm a little devastated.
Oboes don’t age beautifully like many string instruments, nor do they maintain their quality like brass. With the high pressure of air moving through the bore of the instrument, and frequent changes in temperature and humidity, the wood warps and develops increasingly idiosyncratic tendencies until finally becoming “blown out”. Most oboes reach retirement age at around eight years old.
The relationship of an oboist to their instrument can be a slightly complex one. The oboe is a fickle, fair-weather friend. Its delicately intricate keyword system, combined with a volatile bore give rise to innumerable potential problems. Every oboist has a catalogue of ready ‘disaster’ anecdotes about the time that they improvised a new fingering system mid-performance (fortunately not mine), or discovered their B-flats had taken the day off during a wind serenade in E-flat major (unfortunately mine). The causes and solutions to these histrionic episodes often remains a mystery.
For these reasons I’ve always been a bit jealous of other instrumentalists who bond with their instrument for life. We don’t dependently craft our sounds around the character of a particular instrument, and though it’s true that no two oboes are quite alike, much of the difference you hear between oboists’ sounds arise primarily from differences in our physiology, tastes and reed-making styles. It’s not quite like the inseparable relationship between Anne Sophie-Mutter and her ‘Emiliani’ Strad, or B.B. King and his ‘Lucille’.
(From L-R) Wind instruments: clarinet, oboe and flute
Photo by: Pia Johnson
And yet, despite all of this, I’ll admit I’ve been reticent to say goodbye to my oboe. Perhaps I’m guilty of becoming a little too attached. But soon it’ll change hands, and I’ll just have to hope it will be lovingly played by a new young owner instead of idly weathering past playability. This next owner will be oblivious to the stories created in its eight years of service. They’ll be unaware it was once sneezed into while under the baton of a rather preeminent conductor, producing a singular and altogether quite indescribable sound, or played (with difficulty) through the narrow beak-shaped opening of an extremely unflattering duck costume. Though, on reflection, perhaps these incidents are better left to memory.
So, I’m on the search for a new instrument. Besides being in tune and having a nice tone, there are several less tangible qualities that have so far eluded me in the half dozen instruments I’ve tried. These are feelings of comfort, freedom, and familiarity. It’s a high bar I’m setting - but worth waiting for.