Upgrading Your Oboe

Having great equipment is necessary for advancing oboe players. Let’s talk about that.

Upgrading your Reed Game

We all know that reeds can be fussy, but having several, high quality reeds on a rotation is one of the best ways to upgrade your sound.

There are options for you to purchase good quality reeds online such as Jones, Midwest Musical Imports, RDG Woodwinds, Forrests Music, and Bocal Majority.

Keep in mind that a change in elevation from where the reed is made to where you live could significantly impact the reeds ability to play! Determine the best option for you.

One of the best options is either buying a professionally scraped reed from a local professional or perhaps your private lessons teacher.

Upgrading Your Oboe

Having a high quality instrument is the next step to upgrading your sound. If you are wanting to become serious about your playing, check out these options for step-up instruments.

First, let’s talk about the main differences in Oboe types. The two main models are the Full-Conservatory and Modified-Conservatory.

• A full-conservatory instrument has all of the keys a professional would want or need.

• A modified-conservatory leaves out some trill keys, the low B-flat key, and a Left F key

  • This is not great because the Left F key is extremely important for developing great technique.  

There are also three main levels for Oboes: Student, Intermediate and Professional. In this lesson, we are just going to look at intermediate and professional options. See the list on the right for more details.

Intermediate Models

These are all typically full conservatory systems, which is preferred for advancing Oboists. Intermediate models are recommended for most students.