What is it about ?
Oboe, bagpipes and reeds
It is around the oboes, bagpipes and reeds that all the work is done. This involves manufacturing the reed of these musical instruments which constitutes the sound-generating organ.
Woman playing a tenor shawm, Tobias Stimmer, circa 1500, New York Public Library - Public domain
Oboe
The oboe is a wind musical instrument from the woodwind family, with a conical bore and whose sound is created by the vibration of a double reed when the breath passes. Its tone can be powerful and sonorous or soft and enchanting, clear or full of roundness and warmth.
Known since Antiquity, the instrument has evolved in great diversity over the course of civilizations, cultures and over time. Today, the traditional oboes (gralla, tenora, tible, tarota, dolçaina, oboe of Bas-Languedoc, gralhe, oboe of Cahors, Bigorre, Couserans, bombarde, duduk, gaïta, hichiriki, zurna, etc.) and oboes modern (musette, oboe, oboe d'amore, English horn and baritone oboe, baroque oboe, classical oboe) form a large family with multiple facets.
Bagpipes
The bagpipe is a wind musical instrument equipped with double and/or single reeds. There are more than a hundred types in the world. Its geographical distribution corresponds to the whole of Europe, the Caucasus, the Maghreb, the Persian Gulf and goes as far as Northern India.
Bagpipes are all made up of an oboe with more or less complex fingering, equipped with a double reed, and one or more drones which produce, thanks to a simple reed, a sustained note, or a chord of notes in the case of several drones.
Bagpiper, Albrecht Dürer, woodcut, 1514, National Gallery of Art, CCO.
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Different double left and single right reeds - Public domain
Reeds
Taller FC reeds are made from reeds selected according to scientific parameters standardized by a quality charter. The reed is then born from the intelligence of the hand. Indeed, cutting, gouging, carving, tapering, assembling, ringing and adjusting are all stages of manufacturing for which the hand calls upon knowledge, skill and experience.
The reed is an essential element of the wind musical instrument. It determines the quality of the sound of an oboe or a bagpipe. From the maker's offer, the musician can choose a reed that is more or less flexible, more or less powerful, more or less harmonic.
Taller FC offers several types of reeds: hollow reeds for gralles, folded reeds mounted on conical brass for oboes and bagpipes, simple reeds for bagpipe drones.
The reeds are made by hand to guarantee great precision in dimensions and assembly.
Oboe reed from Bas-Languedoc, maker Bruno Salanson, view of the scraping, photograph Fabien Carbon.