has anyone else heard?
Apparently,the eccentric,evasive genius that is Mr.Murray is planning on modifying a baroque oboe so it would play with normal flute fingering and so the player would be able to buy modern oboe reeds instead of the custom made baroque reeds.this means you’d be able to play along in a normal session!!! Is this true? Does anyone know anything? It’d surely be a collectible item…
I don’t think you can get the flute fingerings in the second octave with a reeded instrument, though.
I’ve heard nothing about this, but it seems a great idea.
I think oboe would work wonderfully in sessions.
If something came along with flute fingering
I would want to play it.
Anyone play bombarde? I’ve heard it played
(John Skelton, Chris Norman) but it seems not
to be a session instrument.
An Irish-Oboe
This one was offered years ago by Calmont.
Jonathan Shorland also makes/plays what he calls “pastoral oboes”, and they’re not that different from Breton pistons etc. (See Gilles Lehart’s website or Hervieux et Glet.) Anyway, I believe the basic fingering of the Baroque oboe is/was quite close to that of the Baroque flute - players were expected to double on them.
As for the octave question, oboes may not be very comparable to xaphoons. I’m not sure of the technical details of the latter, but I suspect they are similar to chalumeaux - broad cylindrical bore with single reed, in which case they’ll overblow to the 12th, if at all, like a clarinet (chalumeaux don’t overblow). Oboes have an expanding conoid bpore that overblows to the 8ve with its double reed, so subject to finger-hole placement/scale design, can be much more similar to a flute than can a clarinet. Not being certain about xaphoons, though, if they are more like saxophones (also expanding conoid bore but with clarinet type reed) they too may overblow to the 8ve.
I’ve wondered about Irish oboe as well, even posted a thread on session.org about it. It was an interesting conversation. Would be a great sound similar to the pipes but perhaps less edgy.
This Wikipedia link may be of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oboe#Traditional_and_folk_music.
In addition to my previous post, there are reproduction instruments of the shawm family from the Mediaeval and Renaissance periods available that are probably built at A=440 and finger in a fairly straightforward fashion.
I have searched but can’t find any Baroque oboe fingering charts online to link here.
the voice of the oboe is described in the play Angels in America as sounding like that of a duck if the duck were a songbird. wiki
i have played shawms.. they are very fun, but they cannot play more than an octave, and you cannot control volume very well.
Thanks for that link, Jack. Reading between the chromatic and multiple enharmonic or “sensitive” fingerings that chart gives, the bare bones diatonic scale of the Baroque oboe it shows is, as I thought, pretty much our flute/whistle straight-off D scale up to 2nd 8ve B, save that D’’ has a pinched L1 rather than our open hole and that the F/F# fingerings fall somewhere between Baroque flute and recorder. No need to do much to alter the design, then, though possible a thumb-hole 8ve speaker might ease some things? Of course, the Baroque oboe, just like the contemporary flute, was trying to be chromatic, so there are compromises in tone-hole placement and sizing that could be changed for essentially diatonic ITM and other trad uses - which I guess is where Calmont and Jonathan Shorland were coming from.
Like Daiv, I’ve had goes on basic shawms, and yes, the simplest and higher pitched ones only play a ninth - the bombarde did so originally, but the modern playing style of that goes way beyond its original limits. I think some of the Renaissance tenor pitched shawms like the pommer had more than an octave, though probably not a full two octaves.
The biggest hurdle for us fluters with any member of the shawm/oboe family is the sheer pressure involved in sounding and controlling even a fairly soft and broad double reed. Building the face musculature so as not to “explode” at regular intervals and not to suffer dreadful face-ache takes time and discipline, as does acquiring the lip/breath control of the reed itself - at least as fraught a field as flute embouchure! 'Nuff said!
what about the shehnai (four reeds! sounds cool)? don’t know about the fingering though…
as does acquiring the lip/breath control of the reed itself - at least as fraught a field as flute embouchure! 'Nuff said!
even if one believes that a flute embouchure is as difficult to learn as an oboe (not true IMHO) at least you know that when you pick up the flute the hole you blow into still works, not true with a reed.
and while you can buy modern oboe reeds if you want a good one you better expect to at least scrape on it yourself.
is the sheer pressure involved in sounding and controlling even a fairly soft and broad double reed.
I agree!!! and whistle players talk about ‘back pressure’
I’ve heard more than once that oboe players not only learn to make their own double reed assemblies, but also spend a fair amount of time at doing so.
Also, just to look into it, I once read a book on reeds, more at single reeds for clarinets and saxophones, and it turns out that there are many aspects to making them, getting them adjusted onto the ligature just right, breaking them in, and otherwise maintaining them, etc. Moreover, even after following all of the rules and doing everything just right, it seems that there is no guarantee as to just how well a reed could work, or how long one could last. Anyway, I read that book years ago, and, since then, I haven’t looked back. YMMV.
Hrrrm… . .
I bet somebody could simplify the whole “backpressure” issue with some ingenuity.
Maybe get a a shawm hooked up to an air reservoir, some type of ‘bag,’ to ease the pressure on the face?
And to control humidity, use a bellows instead of blowing directly on to it?
Naaaah. . . . it could never work 
You’re right…it never has, in spite of all the best efforts of centuries! 
They (the cat-out-the-bag types) do insist on keeping on at it, (and droning on about it) though.
I believe attempts at this sort of humor should be strictly regulated…
But it’s amus(ette)ing - and keeps popping out. Shuttle off. (Stock retort.)
No more, please.