 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: leonardA
Date: 2007-12-06 02:15
I lately have been using my clarinet embouchure on my alto sax and find that it improves the tone. My understanding is that the standard sax emboouchure does not use the flat chin that clarinet players use. I'm wondering if you sax player out there use a flat chin or the more puckered "rubber band" embouchure for sax.
Leonard
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Author: doublej
Date: 2007-12-06 02:49
I do not use the clarinet emouchure while playing sax. For one I find that you bite more and thus have difficulty with the lower range speeaking. Also, when playing sax you use more of a jaw vibrato and if your chin is flat and solid you can not get as fluid a vibrato. One last note is that with the clarinet emb. you will tend to want to use a harder reed and for me if I play with a true sax emb. then i can use a softer reed and push the mouthpiece in more which improves the scale of the instrument in a lot of cases. All this being said if you play sax and everything works well for you then go for what works for you. I have just tried to state some differemces that I had been taught by both doublers and sax players and personally if someone heard me play sax I did not want them to say that that was pretty good sax playing for a clarinetest.
hope this helps,
jeff
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Author: SVClarinet09
Date: 2007-12-06 11:26
I agree with Jeff in the sense that the clarinet embouchure makes it harder for the low notes to speak. Usually I play with a looser embouchure the lower I am and the higher I get, the more clarinet like I get. I never fully switch over to a clarinet embouchure though. I play Bari though so it might be a little different for alto.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-12-06 12:01
I use clarinet embouchure on soprano sax, but for all other saxophones--though I don't play baritone and can't speak for that one--I use a much looser embouchure. (Fwiw, I'm an amateur.) For bass sax, I use essentially no embouchure beyond what's necessary to avoid air leakage. Much pressure on the reed causes either register of the bass to honk up an octave--can't really call that Baskerville howl a squeak! It's possible to get a full octave of altissimo on bass sax that way, by using soprano clarinet embouchure in the upper register with no special fingerings, but I haven't learned how to make it a good altissimo. The upper half of it is wavery and way flat and, if I played in public, I probably wouldn't use it unless I were playing the score for a monster movie! Interesting difference between those reed families, because I do use clarinet embouchure (flat chin and so forth) on Eb contra-alto clarinet, though it's a bit looser than my soprano clarinet embouchure.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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Author: am0032
Date: 2007-12-06 14:16
I find that the clarinet embouchure works quit well for classical saxophone playing. My only difference between clarinet and classical saxophone is my tongue placement, small changes in throat position, and blowing variants. My exterior face position is pretty close to identical. Low notes are not a problem as I alter my reeds as necessary. I have never thought that low note response is fixed by embouchure. I use a warmer air stream to achieve acceptible results.
Now the jazz saxophone embouchure is completely different for me.
Adam
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Author: Roger Aldridge
Date: 2007-12-07 23:00
I use a double-lip embouchure on both clarinet and saxophone (also on bass clarinet). That said, my lower lip is not as tight on saxophone as it is on clarinet. So, a simple answer to Leonard's question is I do not use a flat chin on saxophone.
One thing I'd like to add to the discussion is -- regardless of the style of embouchure being used -- to make sure that enough of the mouthpiece beak is being taken into the mouth (on clarinet as well as saxophone). The power spot (as I like to call it) is to place the lower lip on the location of the reed where it breaks away from the mouthpiece's facing curve. If a lesser amount of mouthpiece is taken in it effectively chokes one's sound....with players often compensating by using either stiffer reeds or more open mouthpieces. It's amazing to look around in a wind ensemble and see how many players in the clarinet section are taking in only a small amount of the mouthpiece. This is a trick that many of the old big band saxophone players used as a way to get as big and as vibrant of a sound as possible. It definitely works!
Roger
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