Klarinet Archive - Posting 000889.txt from 1999/10

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] should the embouchure move?
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 03:45:23 -0400

I very much do not want to stand in the crossfire between the big daddy and
big mama professional dragons who are no doubt chewing up charcoal and
drinking lighter fluid right now -- Tony, I sure hope you remembered to wear
the armor with the asbestos lining today -- but FWIW coming from an amateur,
while I don't do a lot of wobbling around with my jaw, I do try to "color"
notes with embouchure changes. Aside from the whole issue of coloring the
notes, though, I also loosen the tension on the lowest notes. I think of it
this way instead of thinking of tightening on high notes because for me, the
difference comes mainly from written G below the staff, on down. Especially
when playing a long sustained note, I think I hear a broader range of low
partials (richer tone, "warmer" tone, etc.) with a looser embouchure.

Someone asked if sax is different. It may vary from one brand of instrument
to another. My saxes were all built in the 1920s and earlier, with
now-obsolete keywork. Most have the D vent (which I don't cork shut) and all
have the split bell, with the B on one side and Bb on the other. Your
mileage many vary, especially with a modern sax, but FWIW: My experience has
been that the larger the sax, the more I need to loosen up for low notes,
mainly from low D on down (the fingering for clarinet third line D in the
clarion register). If I were determined to keep an immovable embouchure, I
could expect trouble getting the note out from low D on down on everything
except my King Saxello, an oddball semi-curved soprano. My Saxello (an early
one, "Pat. Pending," with a 1924 serial number, before the official year of
introduction) behaves almost exactly like a clarinet. I've heard that other
soprano saxes are different, but this is the only one I've ever played. My
normal clarinet embouchure works fine on it and I can even use a fixed
embouchure on it if I want to (although I don't want to) -- again FWIW. It
may only mean that I play Saxello as crappily as I play clarinet. ;-)

For me, the bass sax won't play all the notes with a fixed embouchure. The
bass sax requires a grossly loose embouchure to begin with and a huge amount
of mouthpiece in the mouth. "Warm air" is never optional for me on bass sax
-- I'm physically incapable of supplying "cold air" to a mouthpiece that
thick. For the notes that use the keys on the bell, I need an *even looser*
pressure that I can only get by dropping my jaw somewhat. If I forget to
loosen up on those notes, I get "John Cage solos," while if I keep the
embouchure that loose much above low D, I play flat, and if I keep it that
loose above the octave break, I squeak. (Well, on a bass sax, it isn't
really a squeak. It's more of a goose honk.) However, the tolerances are
very crude on bass sax. Within the limits of embouchure for adequate tone
production, it's still possible, in fact easy, to bend the pitch a full tone
and a half, down and up, at almost any point in the range, just by loosening
and tightening the lower lip and jaw (as if you were trying to say "aw, eee,
aw, eee" although I defy anybody who doesn't have a gullet like the Lincoln
Tunnel to send a genuine, certifiable "eee" into a bass sax mouthpiece).

[Lelia dives over the firewall and flattens down in the trench.]

Lelia

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