The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Exiawolf
Date: 2014-10-29 08:27
Greetings!
This problem is FRUSTRATING me heavily. My C and B in the top clarion register are extremely sharp. I'm trying to fix my embouchure to get this correct and experimented with quite a few things. To start, I put more of my M30 Lyre in (Both top and bottom) and that seemed to help quite alot and maybe even give me a more resonant tone, but there was a grave issue that I don't know exactly how to get around. While playing this way my lower jaw slowly starts losing hold and my lower teeth slide up and forward pinching the reed and causing a squeak. What am I doing?!
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-29 14:10
I have another recent post on the brain so of course my first thought is that the register key is open too much. If you can play these notes just over blowing the twelfth below (without opening the register key) you'll find the tuning to be much lower and 'even' with the notes around it (all overblown of course). The distance from the top of the register tube to the open pad of the register key should be pretty small, only about 2mm. I just visited a tech that admonished me for how small that opening was on my clarinet. He said (and I quote), "that's too small, you're throat "Bb" will be fuzzy." He is correct in that there is a slight trade off here, but wrong in order of precedence. You want as even a scale throughout your horn as possible FIRST. You don't lose that much resonance to your 'Bb' keeping this opening smaller.
The other issue could possibly be a mismatch with your barrel and your mouthpiece. If you have a shorter barrel purchased for 'lower' pitch mouthpieces (many 'custom' makers and the Vandoren 13 Series) and then you switched to a 'standard' Vandoren or a Hawkins (for example) you'd find the pitch adjustment different and may have to 'pull out' quite a bit more.
.................Paul Aviles
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