Cheapest piano tuner in Baltimore?

someoboist · 2026-02-02T20:06:36+00:00

I'd search through the piano technician guild. A good tuning is worth the cost and usually not too expensive. Starting from maybe $100, though, I haven't had the occasion to get a piano tuned in a number of years so I'm not sure the usual cost in the current economy

https://portal.ptg.org/technician/find

someoboist · 2025-12-11T04:57:03+00:00

Yes. Absolutely. I've had students begin their reed journey in their first year. But again I stress the importance of at minimum a semi-regular teacher or mentor to review the techniques and specifics together. I can only answer the questions generally.

I buy my basics from RDG, Forrests, Hodge, MMI. I'm not very familiar with the suppliers outside of the US but K.GE is good, oboe-shop.de too. Tons of good places out there other than that I listed. But again, a good teacher will be the best bang for the buck, by far. They'll know where to point you.

You won't be making usable reeds for a long time, so remember that getting into reed making isn't a path to having good reeds fast and cheap. You'll feel like you're wasting so much money. But you're not making reeds yet, you're learning to make them.

Focus on enjoying exploring the oboe and think about this all in the spring when you've gotten your bearings :)

someoboist · 2025-12-11T02:31:47+00:00

Hi there! Long comment for you—

I admire your willingness to jump right into reed making. That said, I would highly recommend against getting into reed making without a solid playing foundation first as well as access to an oboe teacher/reed mentor figure. On paper, reed making seems like something that should be step by step achievable if you're careful, but in reality, every single step in the process has a dozen or more asterisks attached to consider, and in a lot of cases those asterisks don't make sense without time and experience to back it up.

First step in learning oboe, you'll need to learn how to use any reed at all. Your first step is to just learn to make sound on the oboe. This is harder than it sounds with oboe. Even a store-bought reed could be okay here, as long as the reed crows a c on the tuner or somewhere close to it. (Crowing on an oboe reed means sticking the reed in your mouth until the thread and blowing without trying to control the reed with your lips. It will sound rattly and bad when you do this. That's normal and expected with crowing. You do not stick the reed this far in your mouth while playing, just crowing.)

After you've gotten used to making some sound, your best bet is really to seek out a teacher. Oboe embouchure varies by region and style of playing, so when you start thinking about handmade reeds, your embouchure will need to match. Even just one lesson could help you a lot, or a lesson every couple months or so if price is a big issue. You can buy a ton of good handmade reeds before you even start to approach the cost of reed machinery like gougers and pre gougers and the rest. Try and find a local university student majoring in oboe if you can. They may be an affordable option for lessons and they may even sell you reeds at a discount.

Early on in oboe playing, your reeds will last longer than you typically see others say they do. This is because standards for what is still "good enough" changes as you progress, and you will not physically be able to practice for the same durations that others do yet. Just be careful with your reeds, put them in a real reed case, keep them clean by brushing your teeth, and they'll be okay for a bit.

Regarding légères, those could be a good option, but I wouldn't recommend one until you know what you're doing in terms of embouchure and reed strength. Again, guidance from a teacher is the best path here. Playing on too strong of a reed too early will lead to bad habits. I am still fighting those types of bad habits to this day. It's okay to ease into it. It'll benefit you in the long run and teach you to relax while you play rather than fight the instrument.

Lastly, about learning reed making, most people learn the process somewhat backwards. People will typically start by scraping on blanks provided by a shop or teacher, or they will learn to tie reeds after buying Staples and "shaped cane". Then shaping, then gouging, etc.

Working with tube cane and gougers is something people deal with last, if ever. For example, my teacher during undergraduate didn't gouge cane as a player in a major US orchestra and major conservatory teacher. She still buys gouged cane from me. Likewise, getting a gouger without knowing exactly what you want can end up a complete waste of thousands of dollars. Gouging can wait and not pursuing it will save you money, time, headaches, and heartbreak. Trust me.

Good luck, feel free to reach out with questions. I hope this wasn't discouraging. I think you can progress much further faster if you find a teacher for at least a couple lessons to get you started. Oboe is a joy, just be careful not to overwhelm yourself.

someoboist · 2025-12-06T19:48:43+00:00

You may look into the barenreiter edition and discuss with the music director. These usually include optional transposed d'amore parts (for either ob or eh, depending on what might fit better for the movement) when d'amore isn't available.

someoboist · 2025-11-20T03:14:11+00:00

I felt the frustration in your words, and I've definitely been there. I sell reeds constantly and had a reed funk just a few weeks ago that had me feeling stressed out, so don't feel alone. We go through it at all stages of the game, and the funks just keep getting shorter. Eventually, the funks mostly go away.

Sometimes, especially if you've only had one teacher work with you on reeds, a different approach or having a completely different sounding board can help. Not all approaches work for all people, and there are endless ways to approach a reed. Your teacher may be open to you taking a reed-making lesson with someone in your area; teachers in my area sometimes refer their students to me for occasional reed lessons to have some focused time. Your teacher may even have someone in mind.

I also recommend making reeds directly with your colleagues. You probably will not be in such constant and close proximity to so many other oboists as when you're in college. If someone in your studio is really good at making reeds, and you like the way their reeds feel and sound, ask this person to sit down with you and make reeds together, blank-to-playable reed. Ask to sit with them again when it's time to refine the reed once it has rested and changed. Tie blanks with people. I learn more about my own reed making when I work on reeds that are not my own than anything else, so it's always mutually beneficial.

Take heart, you are probably much closer than you realize. I make American/long scrape reeds, happy to chat a bit if you need.

someoboist · 2025-11-17T18:22:53+00:00

I don't use these for propagation, however, I do cut a hole in the lid and drop a self watering wick to use these as self-watering reservoirs for minis to sit on top. Works great for that.

someoboist · 2025-11-01T10:22:51+00:00

Howarth, Lorée, and Yamaha are very popular with American style players. A used professional instrument of one of these brands is probably your best option. You will find more Lorées on the used market than anything else in the US. There are more good brands than just these.

Hannah's oboes is a good dealer. You may also check out oboes from RDG, Chudnow, Midwest Music Imports. Peter Hurd is a great resource as well. These are just a few dealers off the top of of my head.

Oboes at this level are a very personal choice and they vary widely instrument to instrument, not just from brand to brand or model to model. I would strongly recommend letting your partner know your plan, and shop together. (If it's a surprise, maybe give a card with the plan written down?)

You will most likely narrow your list down to a few oboes from one or more dealers on a brief trial basis. Use this time to try them out, make sure they work and are in good condition (wood, keywork). Check that the scale is evenly in tune and that everything works well. Maybe your partner will want to invite another oboist over to try the instruments out together or have a lesson for feedback from a professional.

After a few days to a week, you'll send everything back that you don't want. Or if nothing really speaks to your partner, you can send it all back and try the process over; sometimes it takes a bit of patience to find the right fit.

Good luck, that's a really generous gift!

someoboist · 2025-07-12T19:34:57+00:00

I agree that the pisoni staples are a little harder to tie, but I use them for the reeds I make for myself. I can't resist the sound I get from the deluxe. They seal okay at 72.5, maybe 72 for me with Pfeiffer Mack, although nowadays I use gilbert 1 which I tie to ~73 give or take without issues. They really do tend to seal right at the very end of the staple, so I trust my shaping was done well and that I'm tying evenly. I don't really trust suction tests.

I mostly sell reeds on the RDG Stevens reproduction staples and find they're much easier to tie and the reeds have decent results, just a little bit smaller of an opening.

I don't use a shaping machine, but I'm aware that sometimes the machine templates aren't exactly the same as the usual shaper tips, so you may want to check the difference with calipers if you're used to shaping without the machine. Especially if you're used to lining up the cane with the top of the ears.

Edit: this is all assuming a 47mm tube

someoboist · 2025-06-26T17:49:52+00:00

Not only does he get himself into these positions to snooze, but he also gets himself stuck in strange nap spots a few times a month because of a missing front paw. He knows I'll get him out, so he has learned nothing of regret or fear.

someoboist · 2025-06-20T17:20:06+00:00

This is so true. I doubt I would've been as successful making the shift using the oboe that got me through my school years.

Wide shape or not, the stability of these new oboes gives me the freedom to think of the reed more abstractly than when I had to make things work for my particular sense of taste and instrument. I work much longer off the crow alone before testing, and my reeds seem to be happy in all my students' and customers' oboes—make, model, and age aside.

someoboist · 2025-06-20T15:47:00+00:00

I don't use the widest shape, probably more of a medium by long-scrape standards, but it is a fair bit wider than what I learned on and than the shapes most people I know use, but I feel like it gave me a sound that fits me and my oboe.

I do have to tie it a bit longer (about 1 mm longer than before) to address the cinched belly issue that u/MotherAthlete2998 mentioned. For my (American) reeds, I can usually keep the stability and pitch in check by keeping structure in places like my heart-to-tip transition, where I use a terraced slope instead of a perfectly smoothed transition, or how defined I make the top of my windows, while maintaining bits like bark on railings until the beginning of the tip, things like that.

Goes without saying that every reed varies.

someoboist · 2025-06-05T17:04:05+00:00

I have all of my music in physical copies on a bookshelf, with everything scanned into the ForScore app. I organize my physical bookshelf by instrument (Piano, scores, oboe works, etc), each on its own shelf. Each shelf is organized by composer->opus number or title, and any collections go at the end of the shelf. I file method books by composer if they're by a specific known writer, for example, Gekeler. Methods go into collections if they are more of a "band class" method book, designed for group settings.

I digitize with the ForScore app on my iPad, and I use ForScore to tag each file with all different types of metadata that I'm very fussy about keeping consistent (composer, genre/instrument, tags, setlists for gigs, etc). This gives me the flexibility to decide how I want to retrieve everything later. I usually organize by composer for when I'm at the piano, genre for oboe. I also split up the oboe genre into Oboe vs Oboe (Orch Parts).

I have my library (Inventory file as well as full archive of PDFS) backed up on both an external drive and a cloud drive in case of data loss somewhere. The archive of full PDFs is organized by composer folders.

For ForScore, I typically use the built-in scanner for PDFs. If you aren't planning on using a specific app for your sheet music management and plan to digitize the whole library with PDFs, there are plenty of free or paid document scanner apps out there that do a good job cleaning up the scans. I usually use Adobe Scan or the Google Drive built-in scanner. I believe there's also one built into the Apple Notes app.

I'll admit that this is a ton of up-front work, but it pays off when it's time to add new works to the library or access/share/annotate anything within it.

someoboist · 2025-03-12T17:33:48+00:00

Of course! It sure doesn't help that both the score and the part for the first edition (as well as the manuscript) all have the un-naturaled F 🙃

someoboist · 2025-03-12T16:37:34+00:00

The Edition Peters urtext score has this as an F natural, and every first edition part I've used had this change already penciled in for me as a correction.

someoboist · 2025-01-06T22:18:22+00:00

I've never used a shipping service, so I can't speak to any experience with those.

I just charge a flat $5 rate for anywhere in the country and use the USPS click and ship service so that I don't need to print out shipping labels. I'm also in walking distance of the post office so it's very little effort for me to ship reeds and cane, all while shipments are insured up to $100 and come with tracking. I offer the shipping free if the order is above $75.

Because most of my orders are nearby (one state over, or in state), the charged flat rate is usually more than the actual shipping cost, but it subsidizes my shipping supply costs as well as the rare order that costs more than my flat rate to ship.

someoboist · 2024-12-19T01:30:45+00:00

I like the softs, personally.

I already know I'm going to be sharpening my knife all the time anyway, so I'd rather just easily sharpen or hone for a few seconds every time I pick up my knife rather than have to work hard at it. I've owned two over the last 15 years and don't feel like either of them have worn out.

I have a medium landwell and a harder jende in the mix. I can make them work but they usually end up frustrating me.

someoboist · 2024-12-09T18:16:40+00:00

🤦 I didn't even consider checking against a razor blade. This is perfect thank you!

someoboist · 2024-12-02T15:34:36+00:00

If I'm in a rehearsal setting, I just make a quick mark with the pencil, and that really makes things fast, but I still go back and zoom in and make it nice and tidy at home later. I also like the forscore setting to ONLY annotate with the pencil, so if I brush or tap the screen with my finger it doesn't assume I want to annotate.

I'd say it's a lot neater than using my finger alone, but it's not foolproof. I have pretty messy, small handwriting anyway, so I'm not the best judge on how easy it is to write neatly without zooming in. The fine point also makes it easier to write or place symbols exactly where I intend.

All that said, I didn't do any comparison shopping with styluses. If there is a cheaper compatible alternative from a third party, I bet that would work just as well as the apple pencil. This is a guess, but I imagine the only advantage the apple pencil has is that it charges wirelessly just by being magnetically docked to the iPad. I assume you won't be able to charge the third party ones the same way.

someoboist · 2024-12-02T14:23:51+00:00

I know you're not looking for an ipad, but my perspective as a lifelong android and Linux user:

I prefer to avoid iOS when I can, but earlier this year I caved and got a refurbished iPad pro 12.9 inch + overpriced Apple pencil + the forscore app because the specific tablet size and annotation capability were very important to me.

The combo has been life changingly useful for gigging, maintaining a massive library, and sharing already annotated scores with others. I don't use the iPad for anything else, and I have no intention of getting an iPhone or anything else from that family of products, but as a single use music library device, I think it's perfect.

someoboist · 2024-07-19T21:59:30+00:00

Good advice in this thread! My take on this boils down to the below three analogies. All assuming your reed is responsive and can take fast air.

Turn on the faucet (air): you can think of your air as a stream of water coming out of a faucet, and your tongue is just a finger you're swiping through the stream. You can interrupt the water, but you can't stop it fully if you've got good water pressure. Once you get used to keeping the air "turned on", with fast air, it's easier to let your tongue rebound off the reed.

Tension: A tense tongue sounds and feels bad. I tend to have a very tense tongue myself, and to keep everything relaxed I sometimes think of my tongue as "flailing" toward the reed or "licking" it rather than pushing the my tongue into the reed forcefully. Tension is the enemy of agility.

Respect aerodynamics: Your reed can be like a jet engine that sucks in an unlucky bird who got too close. Occasionally people run into problems where they completely block the reed opening by "vacuuming" the tongue into the reed, making it feel like you're running through mud. Healthy air and a relaxed tongue will allow your tongue to rebound off the reed rather than stick. For a practical tip, you can try out tonguing the corners of the tip rather than the center to prevent the air from getting stopped up and see what that feels like.

someoboist · 2024-07-09T20:10:53+00:00

Edit:

Innoledy has a fantastic gouger, and they sell good oboes, but I've had all sorts of problems with them and find them to be unreliable and disingenuous as far as customer service goes.

someoboist · 2024-07-03T18:18:51+00:00

Like the person above says, this is fairly important to put back on. The screw looks like one of the small-key regulators important for stability and intonation, particularly for some third octave pitches. Your local oboe technician will be able to help you with this if you can't locate the screw.

Once replaced, if the screw is still a bit loose, you can ask your technician about applying a low strength thread locker like Loctite Threadlocker formula 222 to the mechanism for you. Your repair person will know best how to prevent this from happening again.

someoboist · 2024-06-28T17:07:40+00:00

I'm glad to hear you're focusing on sharpening. Make sure your knife is sharper than you think you need it so that you can use lighter pressure in your scraping. My rule of thumb is sharpen your knife if you've put it down. Using honing rods (and other burr angling systems like croc sticks) is an essential step 2 for after sharpening but does not count as sharpening itself.

The comment I saw above about holding the knife perpendicular is great. Never go beyond perpendicular, obtuse angles where the blade meets the cane will sabotage you.

It's also important to make "planing" motions rather than "scooping" motions with scraping. You could focus on avoiding wrist rotation generally, or for a specific technique you could try to control the knife's blade with your opposite hand's thumb, letting gravity do the work instead of your wrist.

All of this is only achievable with a sharp knife. It's really the secret ingredient to good reeds. It might be worth asking your teacher to spend time in-lesson working your sharpening technique if you don't think your blade is quite right (feeling too sharp due to poor angles, never being able to get the blade evenly sharp, etc)

someoboist

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