There are so many different types of cane to choose from, I thought I would share what I have been reading about and experimenting with in case it helps you decide what type of cane might be best for you. Today, the focus is on oboe cane density and hardness which are not the same, but are so closely related that we cannot consider them separately.
Density of cane refers to how many fibers run through the cane longways. Cane comes from a plant called Arundo Donax and you can read more about that in my recent post here. Because it is a plant, it is made of vascular bundles which are basically long strands of plant material, kind of like how celery is structured. You can see great images of cane at different densities under a microscope here! It is not totally understood how density affects the function of a reed according to Capitol Cane, but there is the idea out there that if cane is too fibrous the sound will be harsh and if there are not enough fibers the sound of your reed will be dull.
Density can be measured with machines for that purpose, and sometimes reedmakers get creative with how they measure density. The density of water is 1, and this is the standard by which other materials are measured. Cane has a density less than 1 when it is dry because it is porous. This is an interesting description of how this man weighs his cane dry and then wet to determine the porosity of his cane and therefore its density.
Hardness is exactly what you would think it means. Hardness and density do not necessarily go hand in hand, but often hard cane is dense. The hardness is what determines the longevity of your reeds. Without going to much into the details of how a reed works, basically the vibrations that happen in the reed slowly break down the cane causing microscopic cracks that grow and eventually cause your reed to become more dull and quiet, if not causing a visible crack! So naturally, the harder the cane starts out, the longer it will endure this process.
Here is the chart from Capitol Cane that shows the hardness and density of the cane that they sell:
I have used Rigotti cane frequently, and so I find it interesting that it is a hard cane that is not very dense. Most of the other canes are more similar in their density compared to their hardness.
To experiment some with these differences in cane, I decided to order Mistral – which is hard and dense – and Innoledy – which is soft and not dense. Maybe someday I will be even more thorough and try something like Rouche, which is right in the middle of both categories!
I did notice that the hard Mistral cane sunk more in the water than the Innoledy when I first put it in to soak. I bought them both shaped and the Innoledy was easier to bend over my staple. The Mistral would not bend cleanly, but was rounded at the top when tied. I don’t know if this is a characteristic of the cane or if this was just some faulty scoring done on this batch. The Mistral also tended to stay more open while I was working on the reeds in later stages. I could also tell a difference in how soft or hard the cane was when scraping that lined up perfectly with the chart above.
I have heard that softer cane needs a quicker transition from tip to heart while harder cane needs a longer transition to offset the effects of being less or more fibrous respectively. I don’t know that that is what I ended up doing across the board between the different canes. I made the reeds without trying to do something specific, but just made adjustments in reaction to what each reed needed. I ended up with good reeds that had longer tips (and were longer overall) in the Innoledy category than the good reeds in the Mistral category that had very short tips. I am thinking that the longer tips made up for any lack of vibrancy that the less dense Innoledy cane had.
It was also much easier or faster to get the Innoledy cane to vibrate. I think they needed less scraping overall which is not surprising. When held up to the light, it was obvious that the Mistral was more dense. The Mistral reeds being more open, tending toward too open, also added to the difficulty in getting them to speak and up to pitch. For a better understanding of how all this affects an oboe reed, see how a reed works in How an Oboe Reed and an Airplane Work the Same Way.
There is definitely a benefit to the Innoledy in that the reeds are finished quickly and easily scraped. However, the longevity of harder cane (which I have not tested because I have not had the reeds that long!) would make more effort at the beginning worth it to me. I tend to be a very tense player and so I also like that the Mistral stayed open so well because I believe it will hold up more to my unnecessarily intense embouchure. Maybe Rigotti cane is still my happy middle!
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