Klarinet Archive - Posting 000338.txt from 1996/07

From: Fred Jacobowitz <fredj@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Ligatures
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 11:40:37 -0400

Suzi,
There is indeed a rather large difference in both the response of
the reed and the sound quality when you use a different ligature. I'm
rather shocked that your teacher didn't seem to know this. In general,
plastic ligatures of the solid variety (Luyben,Gigliotti, etc.) tend to
allow the reed to vibrate very freely so that more high frequencies come
out and the sound tends to be a bit brighter and livelier. This works
well with a very focused, resistant type of mouthpiece such as many Pynes,
Johnston's (sp?), etc.
Rubber/plastic bands such as the Rovner/BG, etc. tend to do the
opposite. They choke off many high frequencies so that if you have a
rather bright mouthpiece and want to control its edginess you can do so
with one of them.
The metal ones are somewhat middle-of-the-road. The good ones
allow varying degrees of highs and lows to come out. The "stock"
ligatures are generally not very good because they tend to allow the
sound to be tinny and to inhibit tonguing and quick response.
As for response with the other ligatures, they vary with the type
of reed and mouthpiece. It is really a toss-up. I find that I don't like
either the response of the Rovner/BG but I have colleagues who swear by
them and I'm sure they work very well on those set-ups.
THE ONLY WAY TO KNOW IS TO TRY THEM YOURSELF. Luckily, ligatures
are relatively (except for Winslows!) cheap and you can order many kinds
from a good mail-order company.

Fred Jacobowitz
Clarinet/Sax Instructor, Peabody Preparatory

On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, Suzi Crookshank wrote:

> Hello! Could any of you tell me the differences between ligatures? How
> important is one for a good sound? I never thought about ligatures until I
> visited colleges last summer and fall, when I saw that most of the clarinet
> majors did not have plain old metal ones with the screws facing them, but
> black hard plastic ones with the screw(s) away from them. I asked my
> teacher about ligatures and she said that they don't really effect your
> tone/sound that much, but that because I'm going to be a big college music
> major this fall, I should probably get myself a fancy new ligature. She
> said that a lot of the top professional players use something called a
> Bonade Inverted. Explanarse, por favor!
>
> -------------------------------
> Suzi Crookshank suzic@-----.com
> -------------------------------
>

   
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