Klarinet Archive - Posting 000482.txt from 1998/09

From: Kenneth Wolman <kwolman@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] ligatures?
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 08:48:46 -0400

At 05:25 PM 9/14/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Ah yes, ligatures. In an old Clarinet article, Harold Wright expounded on
>the importance of ligatures. I paraphrase, but my memory says something
>like "they're incredibly important . . . without one, your thumb gets real
>tired holding the reed on!"

If all else fails, take ye a rubberband of decent strength (not one of the
little ones) and wind it around the reed and mouthpiece several times until
it's tight enough to hold the reed firm. Blow into the thing and you WILL
hear sound, I promise! I've done this when I've bought new mouthpieces to
try out. "Don't scratch it," the salesman warns me darkly, so I am not
about to put a Vandoren Optimum or my old Selmer on it.

It happens to be a nice, easy sound. I don't suppose anyone would
recommend this as a way of life, since people are likely to point at you
and giggle, but (not a rhetorical question) how much different is this,
really, from a much more expensive string ligature or one of the fabric
goodies?

Ken

Kenneth Wolman Information Technology Morgan Stanley Inc.
750 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 212-762-1685
"From the Meadowlands": http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/1649
"The extent to which my four-legged kid controls my existence is relegated
to the status of `secret life' most of the time. The average American on
the street just cannot comprehend inter-species parent-child
relationships."--Anonymous

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