There are few things I find more disappointing or stressful than finding that I have water clogging one of my keys during a performance. I want to avoid this as much as I possibly can, so here are some tips on how to remove water from oboe keys for you to avoid gurgling notes and how to handle it when it happens!
What Causes It
Water build-up in instruments is caused by differences in temperature. Water vapor is much higher energy than water (another way of saying that it is has more heat), and when it hits a much cooler surface, its energy transfers into the cooler surface and the water vapor loses energy and becomes water droplets. This is just basic condensation. This is happening when you have a glass of ice water on a hot day and your glass “sweats.” The cold outside of your glass is taking heat from the air and making the very excited water vapor molecules in the air calm down and stick together as liquid.
In your oboe, your hot breath is cooled by the colder oboe and the cooler air surrounding your oboe, and so water forms in the bore of your instrument, drips out your bell, and unfortunately clogs sensitive areas like your octave vents.
How To Prevent Clogged Keys
There are a few ways to prevent this from happening.
- Keep your oboe clean. Swab your oboe after every use. Just leaving all that moisture in your oboe and who knows what other gunk is just asking for keys to accumulate moisture and maybe even grow something…
- Swab mid-performance. A lot of playing is going to produce a lot of water. The longer you play the more chance there is of getting clogged up. If you are going to play a couple hours, swab at least once in the middle. Or if you happen to have a really long rest during a piece, take the opportunity to swab, just in case (yes, even during a concert! Maybe even especially so!).
- Be aware of when your oboe has cooled off. If you have not played for thirty minutes and then pick up and keep going, it will not matter if you swabbed right before you took your break. Now that your oboe has become cold again, condensation will happen even faster until it warms back up. Play for a few minutes and then swab to get rid off the extra water caused by this. (By “cold” in this scenario, I mean room temperature. Do not just start playing your oboe if you have let it get colder than this. Warm it with your hands first or let it come to room temperature naturally before playing or you risk cracking. And just don’t let it get that cold in the first place!)
- Have your oboe professionally cleaned. Taking your oboe for regular adjustments and cleaning will prevent your keys from accumulating gunk that you can’t get to without knowing how to take your oboe apart. This grime will accumulate even for the most clean and careful from oil on your hands and leftovers in your mouth, so just get the keys cleaned out. This grossness in your oboe will hold on to moisture and make your keys clog much more often.
What To Do When It Happens
It is going to happen to you at some point, even when you try to prevent it. When you notice a note gurgling – or playing a completely different note if the clog is bad enough – sometimes playing that note with extra air can blow it out. I don’t find that this always works and it usually only last a minute or two if it does. Swabbing can sometimes fix it as well, so it is good to start with that and see if it goes away.
To properly remove water from oboe keys, start by identifying exactly where the water is. To do this, notice which note gurgles, if you haven’t identified that already, and then find the hole on your oboe that is the closest to the reed and still open when fingering that note. So if your A is gurgling, the water is under the third finger in the left hand. If a note that uses the side octave is gurgling, remove water from the side octave vent. Whichever is the highest open hole on your oboe is where your air blows out the hardest (which is what creates different notes), and this is where the water will be!
You can start by trying to blow directly into the water-logged key. Aim your air as precisely as you can and blow with all your might. You will probably want to give at least two or three good blows and sometimes you can feel the water blow out from the change in air pressure in front of your lips! For good measure, I often do this while the swab is in the oboe to soak it up and not risk it running down the instrument into some other spot it is not wanted. This can also be a quick fix that is great if you need to play in a few seconds and don’t have time to do more. Unfortunately, in order to actually blow water out, this is loud and not pleasant sounding. It may be necessary to get through your recital, but it will be heard. This is much nicer in a large ensemble setting when the brass section is playing. No one will know!
Sure-fire fix
If these tricks aren’t working, and you want to for sure remove all the water, it is best to have cigarette paper on hand. Cigarette paper is very thin and can easily slip under keys, and it is also very absorbent and will readily soak up stubborn clogs. Remove the top joint of your oboe and slip the cigarette paper under the key with water in it. It is so rare for water to be anywhere other than the top joint, but you can apply the same method to the lower joint if you find yourself in that situation. Cover every key and plug up the end of the joint with your right hand. If you blow into the oboe (without the reed), no air should be able to escape from anywhere on the instrument. Then, with the cigarette paper still under the offending key and still blowing, lift said key up and down several times so that air can only escape from that key and all your blowing force is directed through the hole with water in it. Blow hard! Check the cigarette paper and it should be wet. If there was a lot of water, it might have soaked the paper and splattered around on your instrument some. If there was only a little, there will be a wet circle the size of the key that pressed the paper down. Repeat this process with a dry portion of the paper or a new one until the paper is dry after blowing. Then reassemble the oboe and test the note and voila! You can play again!
Cigarette paper ready to soak up water in the A vent, side octave vent, and Bb vent from left to right.
I let my cigarette papers dry out (which they often do within seconds) and store and re-use them until they are shredded. Which is why the paper looks a little gnarly in these examples – no need to let good paper go to waste!
I hope that was helpful! My brand of oboe, Covey, is notorious for getting water-logged often and so knowing how to remove water from oboe keys has been essential. How often do you run into this problem?