This site is dedicated to the collection of all manner of information about the "Hautboy",
or as it is popularly known, the Baroque Oboe.
"Nicht in der Anzahl der Klappen, nein, in der möglichsten Einfachheit [die Oboe], ohne deren Eleganz etwas aufzuopfern, muß die wahre Vervollkommnung dieses schönen Instruments gesucht werden. Zu Verbesserung dieses oder jenes Tones aber eine Klappe anzubringen, ist weder Schwierigkeit noch Kunst. Auch sind die Klappen ganz nichts neues...Die Hauptkunst...besteht, [Oboen] zu bauen, auf denen man alles, ohne Klappen, leisten kann, so ist erforderlich, die in solchen [Oboen] noch herrschenden Mängel auf eine Art zu heben, welche eben so entsprechend, als eine Klappe ist.." ..... H. Grenser, quoted from "The Eloquent Oboe" by Bruce Haynes [with bracketed alterations]
The pages on this web site are part of an effort to collect as much information about historic oboes as possible and to make it available to the world-wide community of interest. At present, it is concentrated on measurement data for the oboe between 1680 and 1820. The eventuality does not exclude other types of information nor does it exclude other Aerophones.
One intended use for the data being collected is to build acoustical models of the instruments which might permit experimentation by computer with altering physical characteristics of the instruments.
Because the information being collected makes possible computerized instruments whose behaviour may be close to the physical incarnations of the instrument, the project has been provisionally called "The Virtual Oboe".