What would you do to stop your saliva getting into the reed? It happens all the time when I do the tonguing. I`ve heard that most oboists tongue with the tip/front part of their tongues but my instructor teaches me to tongue with the back of the tongue... so the tip of my tongue is always pointing upward when I play. When I tongue, the back of my tongue hits the upper part of the reed and saliva gets in...

Jimmy

Suck the saliva out of the reed before you want to tongue and that should clear up that problem. Then with articulation don`t think about when your tongue is played make a "Da" sound and then think bout where your tongue is placed. The "Da" sound is the clearest articulation on the oboe. Then if you want a more of an accented articulation you use more of a "Ta" sound. Then you can go on into all the double tonguing and all. Hope this helps!

CHRIS

p.s. feel free to e-mail if you have anymore questions

The TA articulation is the cleanest for the oboe. DA muddies it, if you play with a DA articulation, and the rest of the winds are playing with TA you will never be together and there will be no cohesive tone in the section.

I`m decent college oboist (in fact, in high school I beat out oboists from the east coast for principal seat in an honor band)and I don`t even tongue correctly. :O Unless I`m playing staccatto, I do not tongue on the reed at all, but on the roof of my mouth (near the reed). That takes care of the spitty problem for me.