 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: noclarinetno
Date: 2016-06-24 05:01
What are some good ligatures do you recommend buying and what ligatures do you play on?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-06-24 06:20
One of the best (and cheapest !!!) is the Rovner Light. It's virtually indestructible, inverted, one screw, holds a reed on like crazy and allows a lot of vibration across the reed........ya can't beat that with a stick.
Going up a bit on price, one of my favorites is the Vandoren M/O. Also a single screw inverted (see a pattern?). It is metal and breakable but allows perhaps a bit more of the overtones to come through.
You could easily pay way more than what the above cost and not experience much if any improvement in performance.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2016-06-24 06:53
Paul's advice is sound. Ligatures are a personal thing though, and so you have to try them to see what works best for you. Tone and ease of articulation can both be affected by choice of ligature, although the difference is often less to the listener than it seems to be to the player.
Personally I play on a basic model Silverstein that I bought at a discount at a trade fair as new models were coming out. I had played on a now discontinued Mitchel Lurie Springboard for many years before that. Rovners have always been a little dead sounding to me for myself, but many of my students get a well balanced and lively sound on them.
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-24 17:51
Noah--you seem new; so please take this advice as friendly, not chastising:
You may want to use the bboard's seach feature at the top of the page for many threads on this subject matter.
This poster's one opinion, not fact, that others have and are free to disagree with--much that many do agree with this, is that provided a ligature meets some basic tests of competency, as defined here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7TwVEI5r6A, that the subtle differences between these devices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ghMCiV8hTg, if any, is best only appreciated by the most, or at least the more advanced players.
Even if differences could be detected, dollar for dollar, I say that you should spend the money saved here on clarinet gear that works (like etude books and their rigorous study), or other life necessities outside of clarinet.
Final thought: those that dissent with this sentiment are players you need to ask yourself whether you are in their advanced league to appreciate their findings.
The paradox about ligatures is such that--while a perfectly acceptable question for you to ask--if a player hasn't already formed an opinion in this subject area, they probably lack the experience to benefit in performance from even substantiated ligature hype.
That is NOT to cut you down as a player. Rather, is it sound advice to have you spend your time and money in places where maximum gains can be achieved, like lessons and quality practice time and materials.
All this said, you'd think I play on some bargain basement lig. I don't. I play a Vandoren lig, but only because I like the double threaded screw design that makes quick work of getting something that does matter: reeds, on and off quickly. I question its ability to affect my sound or play positively.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-06-24 21:03
I would further clarify that ALL here is opinion and not fact. We just had a very fine performer rate another fine performer's performance as a "graduate level rendering."
So one always needs to use their own judgement of the advice presented. But I'm sure you already knew that.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-24 21:23
Actually, he called it an "under-rehearsed undergraduate" performance, not a graduate level one.
Some other good ligatures besides the already-mentioned Vandoren M/O are the BG DUO, the Peter Spriggs floating rail, and one of the less expensive of the metal Ishimoris (gold plate over copper). All of these can work very well for students and orchestral pros alike. Advanced players may want to explore the increasingly popular Silverstein models.
Post Edited (2016-06-25 02:13)
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