Creations of Astria Oboe Trio
In the category Oboe you will find posts about the oboe as a music instrument.
Building an oboe is a time consuming and meticulous job. When playing, the drilled holes are manually closed by a padding. So there must be a perfect fit between each hole and its padding. The inner side of the wood is to be milled with utmost precision and polished subsequently. This production step is extremely fragile.
Except for regular quality control an auditive control is carried out by an oboist. In the case of Buffet Crampon it is done by Eric Speller.
Pupils either choose for oboe willingly, because they are fascinated by the instrument or by coincidence. Quite often they start at the age of seven, playing parts after one year already. The condition is however they exercise 20 to 30 minutes daily. In doing so they learn the correct blowing technique and develop the mouth muscles.
Oboe is rarely chosen as an instrument though because it is unknown. Astria Oboe Trio have wanted to do something about this from the outset, amongst other with arrangements.
Playing the oboe is not easy. You need to blow with a strong, controlled power through the small opening of the reed in order to produce a fluent sound. During the last few decades new insights relating to the blowing technique (position of the mouth, velocity of the air) have prompted a smoother way of playing. It has become more comfortable and the sound is more fluid. How higher the level of making music, how more heavenly the sound. It is like topsport: you hardly notice the energy of the effort.