Klarinet Archive - Posting 000098.txt from 2002/11

From: "WILLIAM SEMPLE" <wsemple@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Sharp teeth, the double-lip
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 08:11:13 -0500

I have almost exactly the same embouchure as you. I may have been subtly
working towards this over the years. But I learned my embouchure from my
father, who honestly to these day produced the sweetest sound on a clarinet
I have ever heard.

It was not a big sound, but it was simply drop dead honey. I asked him once
how he got this, and he said mostly by playing softly in the morning (to
avoid waking up my mother).

But let me say something about the double lip. I studied with both John Yeh
at Chicago (who was more fascinated with my jazz technique than my classical
promise) and John Colbert, mentioned earlier, both of whom studied with
Harold Wright at the NEC.

Colbert and I spent hours talking about embouchures, air columns, and
listening to the closely-miked but totally delicious Von Weber Quintet
Wright recorded at Marlboro.

Colbert was a double-lipper, but I certainly do not recall his curling his
lip over his teeth, top or bottom. In fact, we worked very hard at
cushioning the reed on the softer front of the lip, framing the embouchure
with the teeth supporting the lip from the back.

The result for me has been an open and fluid sound. As I listen to other
players in the concert band here, for example, they put out a strong, hard
sound that I find, ah, something akin to a jackhammer. Yet many of them have
fine technique and have also played for years. I couldn't live with myself
with some of what I hear.

Sometimes I think a tone can become too centered, making the clarinet sound
more like the stop in an organ. I am sure readers of this listserve have
discussed this issue before!

----- Original Message -----
From: <CGBeale@-----.com>
Subject: [kl] Sharp teeth

> Every time sharp teeth or sore lip comes up on this board I'm reminded of
the
> many years I survived playing the clarinet only because one of my teachers
> told me about folding cigarette paper over the lower teeth. It's my
> understanding that after these many years he still uses cigarette paper
over
> his lower teeth.
>
> My lower teeth are slightly irregular. For this and other reasons I
> eventually completely changed my embouchure. Now I hold my lower lip like
a
> vertical wall in front of my lower teeth without folding any part of my
lower
> lip over the top edge of my lower teeth. I never have a sore lip, and I
> don't use cigarette paper.
>
> Years after changing my embouchure I read that Robert Marcellus and
Bernard
> Portnoy held the lower lip in front of the lower teeth without folding the
> lower lip over the top edge of the lower teeth. Marcellus' description of
> his embouchure can be found in John Weigand's Doctor of Music treatise,
> 'Robert Marcellus' Fundamentals of Clarinet Playing and Teaching',
available
> from the Florida State University library. It's a very interesting
document.
>
> Obviously, many fine clarinetists play with their lower lip folded over
the
> top edge of their lower teeth. Having played both ways, it is a mystery
to
> me why anyone would teach a beginning student to fold the lower lip over
the
> top of the lower teeth. I was taught to do this at my first lesson.
Maybe I
> was taught this because my first teacher played with a double lip
embouchure.
> I have always used a single lip embouchure.
>
> I must add that my radical embouchure change was not a trivial experience.
> But it was worth the effort, and I wouldn't consider going back to my old
way
> of playing for many reasons more than the sore lip remedy.
>
> Clarence Beale
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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