 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Celeborn
Date: 2005-01-09 02:57
I think a lot of the old New Orleans guys played with a inverted mouthpiece, that is, with the reed on the top and double lip. I don't know if I should switch to that or not. I started out using double lip (being self taught, there was no one to tell me how to do stuff) and find the single lip thing to be rather a nuisance as it causes me to bite and leak air. However, I can't play inverted without leaking even more air, and I no longer notice a difference when double lipping standard mouthpiece orientation. The inverted mouthpiece seems to offer a clearer tone (except for my own leaking air) and causes the instrument to be held, if I may say so, at a somewhat shall we say cooler angle. I also find it quite more difficult to accomplish bends, vibrato, gissandos, and such. At any rate I shall now attempt to cease my blathering and ask whether or not I should risk my mediocre leaky embouchure for a technique that may not work too well, not to mention the possible side effect of inducing band directors and whatnot to yell at me.
Advice, comments, and reproaches much appreciated!!
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2005-01-09 03:05
My advice is that the double lip embouchure with the mouthpiece at the correct angle is going to give you much more control over your sound than the other way around. As you mentioned you are not comfortable with "bends, vibrato, gissandos, and such" when you invert the mpce so why change for the worse?
-S
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: ron b
Date: 2005-01-09 05:51
New Orleans players played with inverted mouthpieces??? Check out some pictorial jazz history books and tell me where you find that. Really, I'd like to know. If you find any it certainly was not, nor is it today, the norm.
Why make things difficult for yourself? The whole point of New Orleans style of playing is to have fun with it, isn't it? You don't need lessons to watch other clarinet players and do what they do.
No one's going to yell at you for making yourself miserable... they may wonder why you choose to do it.
- r![[cool]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/cool.gif) n b -
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Author: jmsa
Date: 2005-01-10 18:17
I originally used single lip emouchure and had to switch due to a temporary problem with my teeth. I discovered that my sound was vastly improved and have used double ever since.
jmsa
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2005-01-10 18:42
I'm guessing that part of the perception of the 'clearer sound' that you get when playing reed up is that they vibrations of the reed against your upper lip don't transition to your upper jaw (and therefore your head/ears) as much as the vibrations of the mouthpiece did when you play reed down.
There's been a decent amount of discussion about the vibrations in your upper teeth/jaw translating into an "unclear" tone that can't be heard by the audience, but is heard by you since it's connected to your ears (I'm not a whiz in biology, but the upper jaw is solidly part of your skull which means any vibration on your teeth will translate through your entire head). The reed down, the hard mouthpiece vibrates your teeth (even through a double lip). The reed up, it's a softer vibration, less noticeable.
It seems to me that there are too many 'cons' to validate you making a switch to reed up at this point. Also, in order to check on the clearer tone, play a practice session (a good amount of time, 10, 15 minutes) and record it reed down. Then reed up. Compare and contrast (with a friend if possible). I say a good amount of time because if you only check ten seconds at a time, you may subconsciously play softer with the reed up or be more careful with the reed up and think that it's the better of the two, when over the longterm, it could be the same sound. Or maybe even worse!
Unless it's a drastically noticeable sound difference, it just doesn't seem worth it at this point based on what you say above.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2005-01-10 18:55
Practice the double-lip embouchure, but don't invert the mouthpiece. You might want to try some different mouthpiece/reed/ligature combos until you get the sound you want.
What is your current mouthpiece set-up?
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Author: Celeborn
Date: 2005-01-10 19:35
Right now I'm using a Pomarico crystal Jazz** mouthpiece. I still am trying to figure out what reeds and ligature work best though.
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Author: Rene
Date: 2005-01-11 06:14
Just a question: How does one tongue with the reed upwards?
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Author: Karel
Date: 2005-01-16 01:32
I too am curious about how it is possible to tongue with an inverted mpc. Does anyone have the answer?
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