Klarinet Archive - Posting 000288.txt from 2005/05

From: "Keith" <100012.1302@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] RE: clarinet sweaks/ Buffet
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 09:34:10 -0400

Kevin,

If you search the archives on squeaks (I presume this is what you mean!),
you'll find quite a lot of info. Two of the causes, a clarinet that needs
repair attention and inaccurate fingering probably don't apply since you can
play it well at least sometimes. There are two remaining causes:

1. Badly unbalanced reed. Try moving the clarinet so that you play on one
corner of the mouthpiece then the other. They won't sound right but they
should sound and feel about the same. If they don't, thin down the "harder"
side of the reed.

2. Too much mouthpiece in your mouth. You would then easily slip into the
altissimo by accident. I suspect from what you say that this is the cause.
Try putting less in your mouth and TRY to squeak. When you can no longer
squeak that's the sweet spot. It is certainly harder to squeak with less in
the mouth so it is also a good emergency fix!

Keith Bowen

> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 21:16:42 -0700
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> From: Kevin Nelson <kg6grm@-----.com>
> Subject: clarinet sweaks/ Buffet
> Message-ID: <967210390505172116192dd9a5@-----.com>
>
> My student model Buffet keeps sweaking. I've tried slowing
> down my playing and then once I got rid of the sweak speeding
> up again but that doesn't help. I've also tried puting less
> touge on the mouthpiece and keeping my tounging short, that
> doesn't help. The really strange thing is, sometimes it
> sweaks, but other times it doesn't. Like when I was
> practicing it wouldn't sweak for a while on that part, but
> then all the sudden it would just start sweaking. The other
> difficulting I have is that about every song I play sounds
> good in the begining (odviously, not the very first couple of
> times I play it) but as time proggresses and I've played it a
> lot, instead of souding better, it starts souding extremely
> bad, sweaking or whatever. What's worse about the whole thing
> is that my schools going to a music festival in 2 days and I
> have to play that song. Help me!!!
>
> ------------------------------

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