Often when I tell people that I play the oboe they start wondering and trying to remember what does it look like.
"Is it that big thing with that other thing sticking out........? wait I remember it coils.....no that was the tuba"
After I show them pictures of it...
" Yeah, I've seen it .....same as clarinet!
To solve that mystery and promote this wonderful musical instrument I would like to start with the history and evolution of the oboe.
The word Hautbois comes from French: “high wood”, or oboe, was originally one of the names of the shawm, the violently powerful instrument of outdoor ceremonial and celebrations. The oboe proper (i.e., the orchestral instrument), however, was the mid-17th-century invention of two French court musicians, Jacques Hotteterre and Michel Philidor. It was intended to be played indoors with stringed instruments and was softer and less brilliant in tone than the modern oboe.
In 1781 Grundmann added a third key to the oboe, and fro
m that point on German instrument makers began adding more and more keys. The aim was to provide a tone hole that could be closed by a key for every halftone so that cross-fingerings would no longer be necessary. This trend was followed in France, albeit with some misgivings, since many musicians felt that the quality of the sound suffered from a surfeit of keys.
In around 1825 oboes with fifteen tone holes and ten keys were being made in both Germany and France. Despite this, the instruments had a fundamental difference, since the differing sound esthetics governing oboe-making had led to the emergence of two distinct types which later became known as the “French” oboe and the “German” oboe.
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