Klarinet Archive - Posting 000944.txt from 2000/03

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: [kl] Lower lip placement -- how many reeds?
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 00:18:16 -0500

<><> [...] is that your lip ought to contact the reed at the
point where the reed and mouthpiece separate.

As with most beginners, I tend to play flat, but during the last
few days I've noticed that my pitch changes from flat to 'right on' if I
push my lower lip (teeth) upwards against the reed -- not to the point
where I feel pain or obstruct air flow, but I am beginning to 'feel'
when I have actually pushed the reed into firm contact with the
mouthpiece.
So here is my question for tonight:

Under ideal circumstances, is the 'point of contact' supposed to be
where the reed & mouthpiece make contact naturally -- without contact
being forced? In effect, am I wrongly using my lip and teeth to shorten
the reed's unsupported length and thereby increase its frequency of
vibration (pitch)? Should I be doing something else in order to raise
my intonation? Perhaps even [horrors!...I truly don't want to buy
another mouthpiece] consider a mouthpiece with shorter [I don't know the
correct word .... lay? .... table?] such that I don't need to bend the
reed down closer to the tip of the mouthpiece in order to obtain proper
intonation?

And my second question for tonight: I do not want to debate which
brand of reed is best or most consistent. So let's use Vandoren's basic
reed as an example. If I decide, in my beginner's judgement, that only
one reed per box of ten is 'bad", does this suggest that my standards
are still those of a beginner... uneducated? At the other extreme, if I
routinely discard five of every ten reeds, does this suggest that I am
falsely blaming reeds for problems that originate elsewhere?

Thanks,
Bill

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