Klarinet Archive - Posting 000228.txt from 1995/08

From: Luuk van Buul <vanbuul@-----.NL>
Subj: Re: Overbite as it relates to embouchure
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 03:10:32 -0400

On Aug, 15, 1995 Nancy Mathison wrote:
>
> Jeff,
>
> Having a slight overbite has never seemed like a problem. When I first
started
> playing the clarinet in the fourth grade I had a wonderful private teacher who
> told me to "point my chin" as a means of developing a proper embouchure. This
> seems easier to do with the lower jaw thrust forward, though doing so was not
> conscious on my part for many years. In college I noticed that my sound was
> becoming brighter and used the double lip emboucher in order to find an
> alignment that produced a better tone. As I began to teach and work toward
> solving my own students' embouchure problems I became more analytical of my
> playing. It was then that I saw that my lower jaw is a bit short, and that I
> thrust it forward to compensate.
> My overbite appears to be similar to your student's - about one eigth of an
> inch.
>
> Nancy Mathison
>

Here in the Netherlands, one of the clarinet teachers of the Tilburgs
Conservatorium (south of Holland) named Piet Jeegers has developed a series of
mouthpieces based on the notion that people with more or less under- or overbite
need another facing of the mouthpiece they use.

As you mention, people with slight overbite can correct their embouchure
easily enough to compensate and use a standard mouthpiece. However, when
over- or underbite is extreme, I can imagine that such a special mouthpiece
could be of some help.

By the way, I own the Piet Jeegers mouthpiece for normal overbite (1 to 6 mm)
and I don't like it, but that's another story.

Luuk van Buul
vanbuul@-----.nl