Reed Making: Learning Styles

Music is an art that requires you to learn almost everything hands on. Rarely is there a textbook for what you need to do, and everything you learn by watching or doing.  The task of reed making (all oboists make their own reeds) is one of the best examples of this.

In my reed making class, however, my professor has written out, in a very detailed manner, exactly what to do. This is also paired with having to do the skill hands on, of course, but the written out instructions for reed making add a twist to the learning process.

I’m finding I like this process – it tells you exactly what to do. The way my professor learned to make reeds was much less descript: her teacher would do a demo of how to make a reed and then she had to make a reed. This method puts a lot of guesswork into reed making. The point of the written lectures is to take the guesswork out. However, this must be paired with hands on learning experience as well, which is still a very large aspect of learning to make reeds. 

This past week, we had to learn a certain scrape named “chips fly”. (I’d also like to note that the name of this stroke is only specific to the reed making system the oboe studio at MSU uses.) “Chips Fly” is the first scrape done on a reed after tying the cane onto a staple (a metal tube surrounded with cork).  Just like everything else in music, words cannot quite encapsulate everything about reed making either. Reading about how to do the “chips fly” scrape paints a clear picture in your head of what is supposed to happen, but when you attempt the stroke and find you can’t perform the skill as imagined, it gets frustrating. Even though, with the now written lectures, it takes a lot of guesswork out, there is still a lot of firsthand experience and detail you must incorporate into the scrape you are trying to perform on a reed – and that can only be learned by practicing it yourself.  

Another difference in hands on versus learning by direction is that reading about how to perform a scrape only trains your brain how to perform a task; performing the task hands on trains your muscles to as well as connects the two modes of learning. This is much harder. This is also exemplified by the different quizzes we are given each week on the scrapes we must learn in reed making class. There are always two different kinds of testing: one is a multiple choice quiz on the lecture, and another is an in class evaluation of your ability to do the scrape.  It is much easier to do the multiple choice quiz – it’s only testing your ability to memorize and understand written language. Performing the scrape for evaluation requires you to really understand how to do the task, not just recite words.