Klarinet Archive - Posting 000122.txt from 2008/04

From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Question about a problem
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:14:44 -0400

As a college student I ran into a similar problem, only my "chirps" occurred
on practically any attack on notes below the staff. The basic cause was a
combination of tension and having started to tend toward too light reeds,
but, like you, my teacher at the time (Anthony Gigliotti) could always play
on my equipment and could never replicate the chirps himself, so he had no
firm idea what to try beyond the constant admonition not to pinch. I'll tell
you how we solved the problem, but more important is that all the attempts
at solving it though exercises, embouchure and throat changes, etc., were in
the end of no help and probably exacerbated the basic problem. I think to
this day that the reason was simply that no single change resolved the
tension, which just got worse and worse as we both got more and more
frustrated with it. I ended up afraid to tongue anything from middle C down
to low E, and every time we changed something it just made things more
uncomfortable and less relaxed.

The eventual solution for me was a stint playing double lip, which tends, if
a player is pinching anywhere under the reed for whatever reason, to very
naturally redistribute the pressure more around the entire mouthpiece. To a
large extent it makes the kind of uneven reed pinching that causes those
high harmonic chirps almost impossible. What the double lip gave me, I
think, was a new starting point which coincidentally didn't allow me to
re-establish the destructive parts of my embouchure approach that were
causing the problem to start with, *without ever having had to specifically
identify them or find their specific antidotes*. I won't go as far as to
promise that trying double lip will absolutely banish your student's chirps
- there are certainly lots of possible causes and you and he may be lucky
enough to find the right one(s) by a more direct route. But I can almost
guarantee, based on my own experience on your student's side of the process,
that by trying everything you've tried and the ideas that others have
already offered here you stand a much better chance of creating a worse
problem and a student who is at least (hopefully) temporarily neurotic about
mechanics to the point of musical paralysis.

I still, by the way, use double lip interchangeably with single lip both as
a reality check when my single lip embouchure is feeling uncomfortable and
as an alternative approach for certain reeds or specific kinds of tonal
effects that I find easier with the top lip tucked all the way under. I'm
very glad to have it as part of my arsenal.

Good luck with your student.

Karl Krelove

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Truesdail [mailto:gir@-----.net]
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 3:41 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] Question about a problem

In all my 20 years of professional playing and another 27 years of pro-bono
fun playing I have run into a problem I have never before encountered. I'm
hoping someone can give me some help.

A year ago I started giving clarinet lessons to a high school junior -
bright lad that wants to be an engineer and attend Cal-Poly. Recently he
developed this problem.

Problem: When playing above the staff he very frequently "chirps" most of
the notes. Not quite an out of control squeak, but a "chirp". The reed
looks and plays balanced side to side, changing reeds does not help,
mouthpiece and reed combo works fine for me and I cannot duplicate the
problem on his equipment. We have done throat exercises, vibrato exercises,
more mouthpiece, less mouthpiece. The mouthpiece does not wiggle when I try
to move it when he is playing and his teeth are not on the reed and we've
tried pointing the chin, bunching the chin, thicker lip in contact with the
reed, thin lip in contact with the reed.

Don't know what to do at this point. Could it be support? It looks fine
here but it is hard to tell visually.

Gary Truesdail

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