Klarinet Archive - Posting 000102.txt from 1997/10

From: "L. BORCHERT" <lborcher@-----.Edu>
Subj: Re: Embouchure pedagogy
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 20:55:41 -0400

One of the problems with pictures, especially for college students
(I'm assuming that here), is that the pictures are not of "them." Most of
the pictures in band or clarinet methods books are of younger students and
references in the Instrumentalist's _Woodwind Anthology_ and Stein's _The
Clarinet_ are of middle age players [please no comments about defining
"middle age" :-) ].
The real proof should be in the results. This may sound
simplistic, but the reason we as teachers make such a big deal about the
embouchure is that when it is correct, it allows the reed to vibrate
(function) in the most efficient way. In other words, if (and I know this
is a big if), the student is able to replicate a correct embouchure, then,
in comparison to their collapsed, tight (smiley), or soft-cushion
embouchure, their tone quality should be improved. Even very beginning
students are usually able to recognize the difference and realize that one
is a better sound than the other.
This can be a long term change. I just taught a lesson to one of
my students, who after a month, finally was able to pull her chin down
flat so that her lip was flat against her teeth. Even with all the
descriptions I had given her, pictures I showed her, demonstrations, etc.
she had to discover on her own exactly how to control those chin muscles.
When I asked her how she did that, or what was it that I said differently,
she replied, "I just pointed my chin down like you have been saying." To
me, this is the art, joy, and frustration of teaching all lumped together.

Good teaching to you!

Laroy

Dr. Laroy Borchert
Professor of Clarinet
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM 88003

On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Anthony G. Taylor wrote:

> I have a new student who has been taught a "smiley" type embouchure and I
> am introducing him to a more upper-lip involved embouchure, a Robert
> Marcellus style embouchure, more or less. Of course, what I teach is a
> hodge-podge of Marcellus and other influences, but it is based on
> Marcellus's hybrid of double-lip and single-lip embouchures.
>
> My new student is very talented, but is suspicious of this new embouchure.
> Does anyone know any reading materials that I could give him to read, to
> explain it from another perspective than my own? Books, articles,
> whatever...
>
> --Anthony Taylor
>
>

   
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