 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-03-30 00:07
Anyone who reads my posts knows I am very old school about the most expeditious methods to advance on clarinet being direct, but not short routes,that include hard, consistent undivided attention to study books and metronomes, where greater speed of play is often desired, but never attempted in exchange for accuracy.
Repetition and tenacity are, I believe, the clarinetist’s friends. One of my teachers practiced so much that he’s worn through 3 ring right hand key mechanisms. (Yes, skin acidity also likely played a role too.)
This does not make me anti-new gear, except when players and their parents try to use it as a substitute for the above referenced approach. And of this gear, my particular pet peeve is ligatures.
While I completely respect other player’s rights to believe, and perhaps actually see consistent performance improvement on particular ligatures, I haven’t been able to reproduce this to the extent that I can tell. And maybe that’s due to my lack of performance ability or acuity, although my lack of belief in ligatures is held by many who we would nearly all consider great players.
Clearly, I’m not talking about some 5 cent plastic ligature whose screws “strip and slip.” The ligatures I refer to must consistently hold reed to mouthpiece with reliability, if not also produce “the ultimate in overtones.”
And yet, of all people, I want to praise Vandoren’s Optimum and M/O ligature tightening mechanisms.
As many of you know, the single screw that affects this doesn’t merely meet threads only on the ligature pillar furthest from the screw’s insertion point (the distal pillar), but on the nearer pillar as well (with reverse threading). The result of this is that turning the ligature screw in either direction results in the ligature tightening or loosening twice as fast as if only the distal pillar had threads.
I don’t claim any great performance enhancement with this ligature (I bought an M/O) over my existing two screw Bonades (inverted or regular) or my easier to adjust than Bonade, single screw leather ligatures. But I bought and use this ligature for the speed it gives me in trying reeds. Far less than a full revolution of the screw finds reeds well tightening for play (and mouthpiece transfer to an “A” clarinet), or, in the other screwing direction, complete freedom to remove the reed and/or ligature.
A final note: as with any screw and nut type configuration, as essentially all screw based ligatures are, the screw and nut must be perpendicular to one another or the operator will risk stripping the threads when torquing the screw, no differently than trying to screw a threaded bolt into a horizontal nut at any angle other than from directly above. This angled screwing is exactly what happened when the M/O ligature was first introduced for the Master’s mouthpiece line, that ironically enough, it was too big to fit. To compensate for its mismatching of this mouthpiece series, the ligature pillars didn’t remain parallel to one another, as neither did the nuts inside them, and torquing the ligature’s screw when on this smaller mouthpiece line, contributed to its own demise as threads striped. Vandoren addressed this issue by coming out with an M/O product line that is slightly smaller, and expressly for the Masters mouthpiece series, in addition to the original models, compatible with most other mouthpieces, Vandoren or not. I’m not sure if Vandoren exchanged the Masters mouthpiece ligature for the non-Masters one people originally bought for their Master’s mouthpieces. If not, they should have.
(No affiliation with any music business.)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-03-30 00:20
My final results on both M/O ligatures on their respective Vandoren mouthpieces (at least with 56s and 21s) is that there still is a slight angle to those pillars to which you refer. I don't actually recall this phenomenon with my original M/O ligature. I assume though that the slight "V" effect that I see is not harmful as long as I am using the designated mouthpiece with the designated ligature (per Vandoren's wishes of course).
Bottom line though is that this is by far my favorite ligature EVER. And it is on all counts, being sonically a wonderful accessory, small and unassuming, easy to use, and as you say quick to put on and take off. I currently have both M/O and M/O Masters in gold and wouldn't trade them for the Spriggs, Silverstein, metal Ishimoris, Vandoren Leather or Vandoren Optimum that lay dormant in a drawer.
I would say that you may want to score the inside with some fine sandpaper to help aid against "slippage." And avoid over tightening! It is hard on you nerves in rehearsal and harder on your wallet.
..............Paul Aviles
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