 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2022-03-06 11:12
Many years ago I remember reading in a clarinet book about the "German embouchure". In the description in that book the player has the lower lip in front of the lower teeth! (not resting on them). I have never come across anyone who plays this way or heard about this embouchure anywhere else and I don't believe that anyone actually plays this way. Does anyone know which book I might have read this in? Or did I just dream it?!
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-03-06 17:59
This sounds like something Walter M. Eby would advocate in his 18-page booklet "The Clarinet Embouchure," (pub. 1927)and his three-volume clarinet method. He provided a drawing and photo as I recall of that "German" embouchure. Eby wrote '"scientific" method books for several band instruments and liked to collect examples of odd practices such as "lip trill king" cornetists playing a full octave or more above the normal range of the instrument. Eby's impressions of clarinet embouchure--to be taken with an grain of salt--were probably gathered from random encounters with European players who emigrated to the USA to play with the Gilmore and Sousa bands and join American orchestras. I don't know which instruments Eby himself played or how accurate any of his "scientific" observations may have been. He was, however, most enthusiastic for the "German" way of playing with the long lay and strong outer lip embouchure that he maintained would give the clarinet organ pipe power and presence.
As far as I know, the well-known German system players in the USA such as Robert Lindeman (Chicago Symphony), Simeon Bellison (New York Phil), Victor Polatschek (Boston Symphony), and Michele Zukofsky (Los Angeles Phil) did not play with that kind of embouchure.
Post Edited (2022-03-06 21:32)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2022-03-06 19:08
seabreeze wrote:
> Certainly the later, well-known German system players in the
> USA such as Robert Lindeman Simeon Bellison (New York Phil),
> Victor Polatschek (Boston Symphony), and Michele Zukofsky (Los
> Angeles Phil) did not play with that kind of embouchure.
Many years ago I played a few concerts with a clarinetist who said he learned to play that way from Herb Blayman. I never saw or heard Blayman play live - only in NY Metropolitan broadcasts, and then I didn't know which of their principals was playing. But the clarinetist who told me this said he played this way and definitely looked like it.
Karl
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-03-06 19:28
Was that on a Boehm system instrument (and mouthpiece) or a German/Oehler one? Blaymen played a Boehm, I believe. I don't doubt that some players--perhaps including very good ones--might be found somewhere playing this way--but Eby seems to have thought it is (or was) the commonly accepted way among German players.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2022-03-06 20:18
I never heard that anyone in the Met orchestra back then (1960s-90s?) used anything other than a Boehm. There must be some of his students here on the BB who could write about this with more first-hand experience. The player I mentioned is still around - I see him posting in more sax- than clarinet-related media. Maybe I can track him down and ask him directly to confirm or correct my recollection.
Karl
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Author: kehammel
Date: 2022-03-06 22:10
The Eby publication aside, is there any difference between how German system and Boehm system players tend to form their embouchures?
I was wondering, because in another thread about using German mouthpieces on Boehm clarinets, Paul Aviles did refer to German players "just blowing."
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-03-06 23:36
Neither Boehm nor German system players are perfectly uniform in embouchure.
Some Boehm players use double and some single lip. Some flatten the chin and draw back the corners of the mouth while others push the sides of the mouth towards the middle and even allow the chin to bunch up a little. Some use considerable upward jaw pressure and others very little, managing to provide most of the necessary pressure on the reed from changing pressure in the lip pad. Some even pull the corners of the mouth up in a smile (generally frowned upon) but still somehow manage to sound good.
There may or may not be similar variations among German clarinetists, though it is fairly certain that very, very few of them play double lip. Baermann advised puling the lower lip over the lower teeth and putting the upper teeth directly on the mouthpiece. This does not seem to be what Eby saw in some German immigrant players in the US in the 1920s, whom he described as pushing the lower lip against the reed without pulling it over the bottom teeth. If Herb Blayman used that kind of embouchure in the Met Opera in the 1960s on a Boehm clarinet and on the regular French style Blayman mouthpieces (both rubber and glass) that he sold, that news is remarkable, and I'd like to know more about it
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Author: genekeyes ★2017
Date: 2022-03-07 01:11
Herb Blayman did play Boehm system clarinets, studied with Arthur Christmann at Julliard and played with a conventional single lip embouchure (top teeth on mouthpiece and lower lip over the teeth).
I studied with him for 5 years at the Manhattan School of music in the 50s and 60s and never saw him use any other embouchure.
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