A Minor Journey dot com.

As some of you know I’ve just replaced my Saxophone with a brand new one made at a shockingly cheap price. I’d mentioned that I wanted to get an oboe from the same company, John Packer Ltd to see if their ultra-cheap (when compared to the competition) student oboe was actually any good. Today I picked it up.

I’ve got the 081 on a two-week approval. If I like it at the end of then I’ll stump up the £375 they want for it (or £319 ex. VAT) and get one. Why? Because I’d quite like a cheap second oboe that I can take to places I don’t want to take my oh-so-precious and scarily expensive professional one.

There’s a snag though. If you know me well you’ll know that I’m a hopeless oboe snob. In the (nearly) twenty years I’ve been playing I have never owned an oboe made of anything other than wood and metal. Us oboists are quite particular when it comes to what materials our oboes are made of. For me it’s been wood all the way with my first Howarth B/Orsi to my Howarth S20 which helped me through my Grade 8 and into music college. The past ten years I’ve owned a beautiful Marigaux 901, an instrument which was hand-picked for me in 1998 and still has the wonderful tone I remember when I first picked it out of the case on the 27th December, 2008. No, I’m quite happy with my oboe, thanks.

But for beginners there’s a huge quandary, not to mention music services who seek to help schools and students learn to play a musical instrument. See, you can get a flute or a clarinet suitable for beginners and have change from £250. Not so with the oboe. The oboe has always been so expensive to buy that many schools and perspective students are put off even before they’ve started. If I told you that my professional instrument would cost the best part of £5,000 to buy today you get my point.

The Howarth B, which is the instrument that many a professional remembers starting on, is no-longer made. The replacement, the S10, is still a shade over £1,100 brand new Ex VAT. And yes, that’s for a student-level instrument, not a professional one. Granted, it is an absolutely wonderful instrument and wherever possible I’ve tried to help students find them. Their keywork, tone and stability are second-to-none. Until recently it’s been the only instrument that I’ve viewed as being any good for students to start on. Sadly their retail value is very high and most students are not lucky enough to find one for sale at a cheap price and most schools would not entertain that kind of outlay on a musical instrument.

Earlier this year, Howarth announced their Junior Oboe. Unlike the S10, which can help a student progress up as far as grade five without too many issues, the Junior has less keywork and is only really suitable for a student in their first two or three years of study. As it has less keywork (and doesn’t have Low B or Bb) it’s much lighter. It’s also cheaper, at £608 ex.Vat. But at £608 it’s still a lot more expensive than most parents will consider spending on an instrument for their child to start lessons on.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Junior. I’ve played it twice now and was instantly impressed by the sound and build quality. But the price is a little prohibitive for many music services. So when I heard about the 081 I was interested.

I’ve got a few students with the next model up that John Packer have been making for many years now. The 181 has identical key work to my Marigaux but the bore is made of the same composite material to the 081. Of the oboes I’ve encountered the early 181s were awful, with really soft keywork and poor intonation. However, two of my students have fairly new 181s, which they had purchased before I started to teach them. I’ve always like the more recent JP 181s, although to date no student of mine has purchased one new while with me.

It should have been a quick 50 mile drive down to Taunton this morning to pick up the 081 and to get my Sax looked at (which coincidentally is the saxophone equivalent of the 081 - and played by professional sax players countrywide due to it’s astonishingly good sound and build) but the drive was marred by some big traffic issues on the M5.

Anywhoo…

I got back this afternoon and thought it may be fun to get you all to help me out with a little test. I had a play on the 081 and although it’s only meant for students under grade 3/4 I was able to get a full 3 octaves out of it, from B below middle C to three octaves higher. (The 081 doesn’t have a Bottom Bb). Once I’d got used to it I decided to do a quick recording of a simple Hinke study, which at memory is about grade 4/5 level. Both times I used the same reed.

Obviously it’s easy when I show you the picture to figure out which oboe is which, but…

…can you tell which oboe is which?

Initially I’m impressed with the 081. I’d quite like to have an oboe to take to primary schools and demonstrate without worrying about small children breaking a ££££ oboe. I also really want to return to my schools in September with a set of oboes I can recommend which don’t break the bank. I’m going to continue to play it for two weeks and show it to students both advanced and beginner to see how it fares in daily playing. Then I’ll make my proper review and decide if it’s any good.

Any thoughts, based on the recording? Can you tell which oboe is which? (My initial guess is that some of my colleges in the oboe world can!) How about you non oboists?