Klarinet Archive - Posting 000245.txt from 2003/08

From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Tony=20Pay?= <tony_pay@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Mouthpiece patches, stiff upper lip
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 09:05:15 -0400

--- Lelia Loban <lelialoban@-----.net> wrote:

> With the idea of cutting down on variables again, I did try out double lip on
> smaller saxophones and on clarinets (my largest clarinet is an alto), but
> this change was not a success. I'm so accustomed to single lip on clarinet,
> after playing that way from the age of nine, that it's more practical to keep
> my old habits on clarinet and switch embouchures for bass sax. The bass sax
> mouthpiece is so enormous compared to a clarinet mouthpiece that I have to
> change my embouchure radically anyway, so there's no danger of confusing
> myself on clarinet by switching to double lip only on bass sax.

I assume there's no danger of anyone thinking that what I'm about to say is in
any way a suggestion of what it's *correct* to do, but...

...it did happen that Elizabeth Lutyens in the late 70's wrote in her piece,
'Islands', a part for clarinet doubling Eb, bass and baritone sax. I'm not,
and never have been, a sax player, but the few fortissimo notes required in
this case I thought might not be beyond me.

When it came to it, though, what with all the other things I had to do in the
concert, the only way I could manage it was to stick the baritone into the
*side* of my mouth -- 'half-lip' I suppose you could call it.

Anyway, it enabled me to blow Barry Tuckwell off the stage -- an achievement
not to be sniffed at, I can tell you:-)

Tony

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