Klarinet Archive - Posting 000991.txt from 1999/09

From: Richard Bush <rbushidioglot@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] sore lips
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 11:06:46 -0400

There might be two issues here with the sore lip. Some people have
jagged lower teeth. Sometimes a dentist can smooth them out. (Don't file
on them, yourself :-)
Covering them with some type of material has already been mentioned.
Charles Bay markets a product for this purpose called "Lip-Ease Teeth
Cushion."

A second possible reason might be because of the type of embouchure you
are using. The lower lip muscles need to be kept HARD. If you fold a
small amount of lower lip onto the tops of your lower teeth, but keep it
soft, and then bite down on a finger, you will experience pain as the
soft tissue on the inside of your mouth digs into the teeth. Keep the
lower lip hard and bite down again on the finger. This time you will
notice that the tensed muscles cushion the inside tissue and probably
distributes the pressure along a greater length of the lower lip.

When the lower lip is hard, less lip tissue makes contact with the reed.
This reduces the dampening of the vibrating reed. A clearer and more
efficient sound (louder) is the result. I tell my students to picture a
teeter-totter pivoting over a large steel pipe. That is what the lower
lip contact to the reed should be. I then tell them to picture the
teeter-totter with a twelve by twelve wooden beam being the fulcrum with
a huge pillow strapped over it. I then ask, rhetorically, how they think
the teeter-totter would work.

Also, when the lip is hard, it becomes a much more effective controller
of the reed. Pressing a hard lip against the reed required less pressure
to achieve control. Less pressure means less pain.

The corner muscles must also be made hard. They not only create a seal,
but they also function as pillars that counteract the biting motion.

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