Michael Höfele is principal English horn player of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and a member of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. As a reed making teacher, he passes on his knowledge to his students at the University in Karlsruhe. Together with him, we have developed an English horn template MHO, which has excellent sound properties and at the same time opens up a world of expressive possibilities.
For his English Horn reeds he uses two different approaches to the scrape length. For more flexible sound (e.g. with Sacre or Donizetti) he chooses a slightly longer scrape. For a large sound, a shorter scrape is used (e.g. with the Swan by Tuonela or a big Shostakovich solo).
“I am impressed by the flexibility of my template.”
Background Information
Michael Höfele uses Guercio D10 staples and ties his reed on a length of 56 mm. These are then clipped to a length of 54 mm with a scrape length of 11 – 11.5 mm. He tends toward harder cane with a gouge thickness of 0.67 – 0.68 mm.
