Klarinet Archive - Posting 000306.txt from 2005/01

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Ligatures--Important?
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:45:30 -0500

Jane Hur wrote:

> Yeah; I heard that some of the best German clarinetists swore by using
> a piece of string to hold
> their reeds on. That's what made me a little leery of the really
> expensive high tech ligatures.

The best thing to do is surely just to go to a good shop and try a load
of different things, and just see if anything produces an improvement
(and I'm fairly sure in the US some of the big mail order suppliers will
allow trials).

Certainly I notice a difference between the different ligatures that I
own. I'd hesitate to say that any of them is "better". I get different
results depending on the acoustic and depending on what reeds and
mouthpiece I'm using. For sure string works great for some people, so
you should definitely give it a go. Other people have found great
results with other ligature types (me included).

The thing is that you have to get a *combination* of reed, mouthpiece
and ligature that best helps you get the sound you want, and you can
only really do that by trying stuff. We're all too different from each
other to be able to just dictate solutions. Just test out a load of
different combinations and see what works.

-- Joe

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