Klarinet Archive - Posting 000999.txt from 2004/10

From: "Forest Aten" <forestaten@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Joe Allard
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:50:17 -0500


Adam said:

>The advantage (and hence attractiveness) of smiling is that it thins our
>lips out, lessening the dampening of the vibration of the reed and thus
>creating more sound.

This is NOT true.... In several pretty recent posts by Tony Pay, he
described the importance of the bottom lip, both in terms of how the
muscle was "flexed" or in other words, the firmness and nature of the
cushion...and he discussed the relationship between the bottom lip and the
reed...in detail. Most of this information was in the referenced post
Tony posted. I wish I could find the more recent postings. Perhaps Tony
will remember the posts I refer to.

>Unfortunately, the muscles which we use to smile are
>very much connected to the muscles in our throat.

This is really NOT true.... There are over 150 sets of muscles in
the face...none of which are attached to the muscles in the throat.
Players often suffer from negative correspondence between muscle sets
related to performance of a musical instrument.

>Try to smile (a silly
>'Chesire Cat' kind of grin) and talk. You will feel the tension in your
>throat. I hope Tony won't take me to task for suggesting a tight throat is
>not conducive to an efficient clarinet tone.

This is NOT true... I can't imagine how a smiley face embouchure and
a "tight" throat work together...or how they might even remotely
correspond in positive ways???

Sorry Adam....If players buy into this information and follow this
smiley face embouchure advice, most will suffer.

Forest Aten

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org