Klarinet Archive - Posting 000188.txt from 2003/08
From: Tom.Henson@-----.com
Subj: RE: [kl] Mouthpiece patches, stiff upper lip
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 14:38:41 -0400
I have not had time to read every single message in this interesting thread,
but thought I would add some comments from my own experience. This is long,
but I hope worth the read.
I have been in the process of converting to a double lip embouchure now for
a couple of months. My main reason to try this change was to solve a biting
problem that I had. Many people that have a biting problem do not really
know they have one because they just get by using a harder reed.
The reason why it may not be good to use a harder reed, is this can allow
one to maintain an wrong embouchure for a longer period of time until it
becomes a bad habit that is hard to break.
The first step that I chose in converting to a double lip was to go to a
softer reed. This was not a drastic change. I went from using a 3 3/4 to 4
Gonzales FOF and Mozart reed to a 3 1/2. I also have a box of hand finished
reeds from a person in Germany that are wonderful. The brand is one that you
may not have heard of before. They are Foglietta. These reeds run a little
softer than the Gonzales', but because each reed is hand balanced they seem
to be a little more responsive.
In using a softer reed, my biting became immediately apparent after about 15
minutes when the reed would start to close up on me. I was actually putting
so much pressure on the reed with my bottom lip that the tip would slowly
bend itself until the reed became unresponsive. That's when I knew how bad a
biting habit I had.
The solution, as has been proposed by many proponents of double lip, is to
use the upper lip over the teeth to some degree. I know that the degree that
you put your lip over your upper teeth will vary from person to person. The
very nature of using this method means that one will usually back off of the
pressure on the bottom lip/teeth to avoid pain in the upper. This forces you
to open your mouth a little more than you had before and thus relieve some
of the lower lip pressure on the reed.
At first, this made it harder to maintain a stable sound because the upper
lip was not used to this and was not strong enough to take the lead in
holding the mouthpiece stable.
I think at this stage many people will give up and go back to the single
lip. I kept working at it a little at a time, building up the amount of time
I could play this way and strengthening the upper lip at the same time.
Eventually, the upper lip does get strong enough to hold the mouthpiece
solidly in place and your tone becomes uniform. At this point, the upper lip
is doing most of the work and the reed just rests on the bottom lip. It was
then that I realized that I had better control over the tone using the upper
lip as the pressure point than the lower lip. In addition, I also noticed
that the clarion register improved dramatically in the ease with which I
could play large interval and jumps as long as my embouchure remained
steady. Simply amazing I thought. I felt I had found the secret to unlocking
playing in the clarion and altissimo register.
The downside at this point was I then realized how unsmooth my fingers were.
Now I became aware that I was using way too much motion and force in my
fingers and had the dreaded popping, and the instability that came from this
bad habit. I went back to basics and started playing scales very slowly,
playing in front of a mirror and retraining my fingers to use only the
barest of motion needed to play legato scales, evenly and smoothly. Not
raising my fingers more than necessary to sound the note or hold the
clarinet steady.
Bingo, that's when I finally understood the comment that was made about
"playing between the notes". I realized now that I had control over my tone,
that the fingers were the next part of this puzzle. As I practiced my
scales, I was able to learn to "play between the notes" and have made
progress in developing a very smooth legato in just a couple of months. The
goal here is to make the clarinet play the notes (do all the work), not your
embouchure or your fingers. An example would be if you had two clarinetist
in the same room. Turn around the clarinet from the upper joint downward and
while that other person is blowing air through it, you manipulate the keys
with your fingers. Notice how much better it sounds? Why does this work?
Because the subconscious mind does not make a perceived connection between
the blowing and the movement of the fingers. You have to disconnect the mind
from the fingers to the point that you are not anticipating the movement of
the fingers and thus changing your embouchure or airstream to compensate for
this "perceived" movement. If you can combine the double lip with this new
finger motion technique, you will be amazed at what it means to "play
between the notes" and how simple it is.
Now that I have realized this, I am now at the point that the corners of the
mouth become important. It is absolutely possible to replace biting with the
lower lip to biting with the upper lip. In order to counter this and thus
complete the embouchure rebuild, you have to start working on the corners.
It is my feeling that the corners of the embouchure is the most neglected
part. Only when you are able to hold the mouthpiece firmly and solidly in
place with just the corners of your mouth will you completely eliminate any
possibility of biting for good. Then one can use the upper and lower lip
pressure at will to control or change their tone production.
I know that my experience is just that, but perhaps the process of what I
have gone through will be helpful, if not the actual technique itself.
There is a lot of material about playing with a double lip in the Klarinet
archives. There are also many references to the article by Ralph Mclane
published in 1950 in "The Clarinet" magazine. I used this as a guide in
converting to a double lip and two things that Ralph said in this article
that struck me. I paraphrase: Not using a double lip embouchure is simply
taking short cuts in developing your technique (not a good thing); If you
have any teeth marks on the top of your mouthpiece at all, then you are
biting. I hope I have conveyed the intent of his two thoughts in my
paraphrase. If not, please feel free to correct me as I do not have the
article in front of me to give exact quotes.
Tom Henson
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