Chronic Octave Key Water

I've just gotten through back-to-back auditions, then a faculty recital, and was practicing during my President’s Day break when I noticed a concerning number of times that my second octave key got filled with water not too long into my practice session. Likewise, nearly all of my students have had issues with water in their octave keys, and one weirdly in their E key. All this to say…if you’ve been having chronic water bubbles in your keys, you’re not alone! 

Fix Option 1: Remove and clean the pip

I was so annoyed about my instrument gathering water in the second octave key like a sponge for weeks that I tried to remove the octave pip myself. It was really stuck, though, and I couldn’t get it out, so I stopped by my local repair shop to have the tech there take it out and clean it for me - the work of a few minutes, usually. It took the tech a surprising amount of effort just to get the pip removed, and then he said that he didn’t find much of anything in the hole or the pip. 

I was shocked, because this amount of water typically comes from dust or debris caught in the tiny hole of the pip, which then catches water and builds up until there’s a bubble of water in the hole preventing the octave from playing correctly. The tech checked both my first and second octave pips and cleaned them for good measure before reassembling, but essentially, he reported that the pips weren’t causing the water issues to happen. Commiserating with me, he asked “Do you believe in water tracks?”

Fix Option 2: Create a new water track

I think it was posed as “do you believe…” because there are many theories out there of what prevents water from getting into the octave keys and trill keys of an oboe (or English horn). There are people who swear by this oil spray called Woodwind-All that you can spray into the bore of an instrument (which is now a banned substance I think - I have a can of it but haven’t used it since grad school). There are people who swear that using a feather as a swab to evenly distribute the water around the bore of an oboe will prevent water bubbles from forming. I’m sure that there are more opinions out there, but those are the ones I’m most familiar with.

There’s a third thought that one can create a water track down the back of the bore using the attractive property of water. I’m not certain that’s the correct name for the actual scientific property, but the idea is basically that water molecules attract each other. Where one droplet has gone, more will follow because it’s a less resistant pathway. (Something about friction and surface tension, I imagine.) Based on this understanding of the behavior of water, someone came up with the idea to drip water down the back of the bore of the top joint prior to playing to help avoid water getting into the tone holes. 

The traditional way to do this is with an eye dropper. I’ve done this in the past with success, but I’ve lost my eye dropper somewhere in the piles of reedmaking and oboe paraphernalia. Also when I was at CVS over the weekend I couldn’t find any eye droppers. So, thinking back to a recent conversation with a colleague who uses a bamboo skewer to create a water track, I decided to give it a try. Basically, you dip the tip of a bamboo skewer into your reed water cup, then make contact with the part of the bore where you want the water track, and send the skewer through the oboe. It creates a water track and doesn’t cost much! 

I’ve been using this method faithfully for the past few weeks and indeed I’ve been getting less water in my octave keys. I think that I’m creating a new water track, so it will take some time for this new track to become the main track.

Fix Option 3: Watch the angle of your oboe at rest.

Now that I have a method to prevent water from getting into the octave keys, I’ve also been trying to figure out why the water track going down my tone holes may have come into being. The most common explanation I can think of is that the oboe is being held at a forward angle when at rest. I see this all the time in lessons when students are holding their oboe and we’re discussing something. It’s a constant refrain: “Careful to hold your oboe straight!” 

I’m typically really good about holding my oboe straight when at rest. My oboe stands are flat, and if the floor is uneven, I try to make sure they tilt backwards (so the tone holes are tilted slightly upwards). So why the water problems?! 

The only new thing in the past few months is the Kooiman Etude3 thumbrest that I switched to in December when I started having some right thumb pain. My hypothesis - which I’ve noticed a few times in the past weeks - is that the way the Etude3 thumbrest sits on the hand encourages a more forward angle when the oboe is resting on the leg. I use a peg when I practice, but there are some times when I just hold the oboe to think about things or sing a rhythm or melody to myself or listen to a recording, and those times are when the angle has been bad, I think. 

So, I love my Kooiman Etude3 thumbrest and switch back and forth between it and the factory standard thumbrest, but it seems that it can encourage the oboist to hold the oboe at a forward angle when at rest.  Indeed, with the bamboo skewer and being more aware of how I hold my oboe while at rest, I’ve had very few water issues in the last week of playing.