 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Steve
Date: 1999-07-11 02:57
How do you find the ideal amount of mouthpiece that should go into your mouth? In the lower registers I can get a reasonably good tone. I have to use more mouthpiece, though, in the altissimo register in order to reach most of the notes. (I'm still working on being able to play decently in that range at all.) Conversely, if I use this "altissimo" amount of mouthpiece in the lower registers, my tone becomes very flat and full of squeaks.
Should I stick with more bite on my mouthpiece and adjust playing in the lower registers through more practice, or is there something else I should do to improve my technique in the altissimo register?
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Author: Rick2
Date: 1999-07-11 06:10
How long have you been playing? It sounds like you shouldn't be in altissimo at all right now. The adjustment in emboucher to hit altissimo notes is very subtle. Many people claim no adjustment at all. You really need to work with somebody in the same room with you. Are you taking lessons or do you know a better player who can watch your emboucher?
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Author: Steve
Date: 1999-07-11 15:48
Rick2,
I played for 8 years through high school, then didn't play for 20 years. I started again 2 1/2 years ago, playing about a half hour a day. The altissimo range has always been a problem for me. As for an instructor, I haven't had much luck fiding one in our town of 40,000.
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Author: Dee
Date: 1999-07-11 19:02
Welcome back to clarinet playing!! Stick with it.
What reed and mouthpiece combination are you using? For the reed, be sure to include brand, model, and strength. For the mouthpiece, include brand and model.
There is a possibility that your setup is inappropriate.
Has your clarinet been thoroughly gone over by a competant technician? Minor leaks that are otherwise unnoticeable can create problems.
Altissimo playing needs really good, strong air support even when playing soft. If the air support is weak, the sound is weak and thin. It will be especially noticeable in the altissimo and in playing softly in the altissimo. The air needs to have a lot of pressure at all times. Control the loudness of the sound by the volume of air you put through the instrument but the air pressure must stay strong.
A good drill is to play scales using long whole notes. Start at the bottom of the instrument and work your way up. These long note scales will help you work your way into the altissimo, help build your embouchure and breath support, and help you internalize the subtle differences between the registers.
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Author: Steve
Date: 1999-07-11 21:12
Dee,
I am playing a used Yamaha 34 that was recently given a "tune-up" by a competent technician; several pads were replaced and the keys were adjusted.
The mouthpiece I am using is a Vandoren B45 and I use a #3 Vandoren reed (regular, not V12).
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Author: Ginny
Date: 1999-07-11 21:47
You might want to get a clarinet technique book. I have found Essential Clarinet Tech. by Davies and Harris very helpful. They claim that the lower lip should be about where the mouthpiece and reed separate.
I found that my altissimo sound improved when I got a good clarinet, however.
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Author: Dee
Date: 1999-07-11 23:18
Steve wrote:
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Dee,
I am playing a used Yamaha 34 that was recently given a "tune-up" by a competent technician; several pads were replaced and the keys were adjusted.
The mouthpiece I am using is a Vandoren B45 and I use a #3 Vandoren reed (regular, not V12).
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This sounds alright then. So then it's back to embouchure and breath support. Playing and holding long notes, although extremely boring, help to build both. Also the long tones allow you to hear and focus on the sound. After holding the notes, try swelling and diminishing the volume on a single held note.
If you could manage to get some private lessons, perhaps they can help pinpoint anything that needs changing.
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Author: Dee
Date: 1999-07-11 23:27
Perhaps it would help to avoid even using the term "bite." This may subconsciously lead you to "bite" or "pinch" when you play. This is a bad habit that a lot of people fall into when they try to play altissimo and can lead to very thin, shrill sounding notes. Instead, visualize your embouchure as providing firm, disciplined support and control around the entire circumference of your mouthpiece.
If you think that this may be your problem, try playing with the double lip embouchure part of the time. Here the upper lip is folded over the teeth just like the lower lip. It is impossible to bite or pinch as you will immediately feel *pain* if you do. At first it may be very difficult to balance the clarinet this way so if need be use a neck strap. Also your embouchure may not be strong enough at first to be particularly successful with it. But it certainly helps pinpoint and break a pinching habit.
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Author: HIROSHI
Date: 1999-07-12 07:49
Another way,:
Though it is not described in an ordinary fingering chart,it is usual to put down the left hand pinky finger on the key to open(the key to emit C1#) to emit G3,G#3,A3.
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Author: HIROSHI
Date: 1999-07-12 08:17
FYI:This may not be your case.Just FYI.
Upper teeth contact should be shallower than the lower lip one. This is the natural result of straight head and 30 degrees clarinet position. Keith Stein's book "Art of Clarinet Playing" instructed something like this:
1)Do not bend your head forward to bite mouthpiece.Head should be straight.Try to have a feeling to hold the mouthpiece inside of upper teeth ine.He might have written the typical upper teeth position would be a half inches from the mouthpiece tip.
2)Surely,he also recommended to try double lip embouchure, even thouth it is temporary,as Dee described.
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Author: Lelia
Date: 1999-07-12 16:57
Steve wrote:
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How do you find the ideal amount of mouthpiece that should go into your mouth? In the lower registers I can get a reasonably good tone. I have to use more mouthpiece, though, in the altissimo register in order to reach most of the notes. (I'm still working on being able to play decently in that range at all.) Conversely, if I use this "altissimo" amount of mouthpiece in the lower registers, my tone becomes very flat and full of squeaks.
Should I stick with more bite on my mouthpiece and adjust playing in the lower registers through more practice, or is there something else I should do to improve my technique in the altissimo register?
IMHO, no, you shouldn't be putting more of the mouthpiece into your mouth to produce altissimo. That's impractical, especially in fast passages where you need to jump back and forth through different parts of the scale. You can get the *effect* of more mouthpiece by rocking the clarinet up slightly for the low notes, so that less of your lower lip presses on the reed, then rocking the clarinet down slightly as you ascend the scale, but even that can get you into some weird gyrations if it's overdone. I've seen professional clarinetists weebly-wobble all over the place, even "stir the pot" with the clarinet, until it looks silly--and most of them crank the clarinet up for the high notes and down for the low ones, so I think they're not going for more mouthpiece on the high notes, but for a narrow throat (raising the head and pulling it back constricts the throat, which puts a thinner stream of colder air into the clarinet) for high notes. I also suspect that some of the pot-stirrers get into that awful habit because they think it looks showy and dramatic...! I think excessive movement of the clarinet looks bad and I've never been able to improve my sound that way, either, so I try to find the "happy medium" spot on the mpc where most of the scale sounds good, and then adjust the embouchure at the sides: pulling in and firming up at the corners of the mouth and in the cheek muscles, instead of tensing and "biting" (clamping down vertically) on the reed. Firming the embouchure at the sides supports the lower lip on the reed. It's a little bit non-intuitive at first, but practice long tones that way and you'll strengthen your chops enough so that this embouchure is actually less tiring than "biting". Then you can firm up for the high notes and relax for the low ones without getting those squeaks. Knowing just where to do what gets automatic after awhile. I agree with what others have said about getting some lessons, even if it means driving a long way a few times just to get a few sessions with a good coach. Many adult non-beginners like to get coached occasionally, just to avoid falling into bad habits, without signing up for years on end of lessons.
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Author: Ray Swing
Date: 1999-07-12 17:40
Hiroshi, I don't understand your comments concerning "LH pinkey". Would you please elaborate. Thanks
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 1999-07-12 18:01
Steve wrote:
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How do you find the ideal amount of mouthpiece that should go into your mouth? In the lower registers I can get a reasonably good tone. I have to use more mouthpiece, though, in the altissimo register in order to reach most of the notes. (I'm still working on being able to play decently in that range at all.) Conversely, if I use this "altissimo" amount of mouthpiece in the lower registers, my tone becomes very flat and full of squeaks.
Should I stick with more bite on my mouthpiece and adjust playing in the lower registers through more practice, or is there something else I should do to improve my technique in the altissimo register?
Steve -
Here's some stuff I posted a couple of months ago.
You have less flexibility in where you place your lower lip on the reed in the altissimo register. The perfect point is exactly where the reed separates from the lay of the mouthpiece. Hold the instrument vertical and with the reed facing left (or right, if you prefer). Note the separation point and make a very light pencil mark on the reed. Your lower teeth should be exactly at that mark.
There are as many theories about how to form an embouchure as there are players, but one thing is sure: contortions produce tension. With the clarinet in your lap, relax your face, lower your jaw a little bit, gently raise the instrument and "pierce" your closed lips with the mouthpiece. As you provide muscular support, the skin surface should move as little as possible, so that your facial expression is as close as possible to how it would be if you were not playing.
One of the best exercises for improving altissimo register playing is to work on the same fingering in 3 registers. Start with good, firm low A. Press the register key very gently and gradually, so that you can't predict when you will jump to the E above. Do that a few times to get both registers sounding good. Then play the A, go to E, and very gradually roll your left index fingertip down to leak the hole. Once again, you should not be able to predict when you will jump up to the C#.
Try not to make any change in embouchure or tongue, throat and palate position. Keep the middle E and, as much as possible, the low A tone quality in your ear, and carry the "roundness" into the third register. C#, after all, is not a particularly high note, and it helps to think of it as "not all that high."
It’s reasonably easy to keep your fingers relaxed and resting lightly on the keys for the low A and the middle E. Concentrate on keeping it the same for the C#. It's very tempting to squeeze hard with your fingers to try to get the note out. Embouchure pinching and hand tension feed off each other, so you should work on keeping the finger pressure light.
When you get the A/E/C# sequence under control, move to Bb/F/D, and so on up to Eb/Bb/G. When you do Bb/F/D, don't add the Ab/Eb "resonance" key the first few times. Tolerate the flatness to keep finger movement as small as possible until you feel comfortable.
I play double lip full time. It will help in these exercises if you can use double lip at least part time, since this makes the slur smoother, and any tension or lack of physical coordination will be more obvious to you.
Many method books tell you to use an AHH vowel shape in your mouth for low notes and to move more and more toward EEE as you go higher, on the theory that the higher pitch needs a higher vowel or a smaller resonating chamber in the mouth. For me, doing this produces nothing but a thin tone and squeaks on the high notes. Instead, the higher I go, the more I try to stay aware of keeping an AHH vowel, to keep the lower register smoothness and sweetness as I go higher.
One important way to control the brightness of your tone is to put more or less of your lower lip over your teeth. Most of the method books say you should put about half of the red part of the lower lip over the teeth. This is noticeably less than most people use. When I want a more penetrating sound, I stretch the tip of my chin down, thinning the pad over my lower teeth and pulling all but a
small part of the red part of my lower lip outside my teeth. This adds energy and brightness to the sound and lets me balance other instruments without having to play louder. Schoenberg called it "Hauptstimme" (main voice) and called for it when he wanted a part to be heard, even if it was not the highest line.
By going the opposite way, relaxing the effort to keep the tip of my chin down, the skin bunches up slightly, more of the red part of my lip goes over my teeth, and the pad between my teeth and the reed gets thicker. This softens the sound quality, making it more covered. Schoneberg called it "Nebenstimme" (neighbor voice) and called for it when he wanted a part not to be dominant, even if higher in pitch than the main line. By thickening and enlarging the lip pad over your teeth, you can play high notes with a "covered" quality. You really never have to worry about being “spread” on top. You'll always be heard. Think of being warm, smooth and neighborly.
It's important to have good breath support. However, this does not necessarily mean blowing hard. Thin the airstream down, so that it feels like it has speed and momentum, but not too much volume.
The reed is more critical for the high notes. If you're having trouble playing soft in the altissimo, the tip of the reed is probably too stiff. Put the reed on a flat piece of glass and stroke the vamp with rush, 600 grit sandpaper, or other fine abrasive, always toward the tip, to thin it down slightly from the tip back 3/16" or so. Make the area you work on curved, to match the shape of the tip. The thinner tip will vibrate more easily in the altissimo, while the thicker area behind will keep the sound from being buzzy. Work *very* slowly, and be prepared to ruin some reeds as you learn.
Also, the reed works better when it is very slightly narrower than the tip - about the width of a light pencil line. Narrow the reed on a fine file or sandpaper, always leading with the butt end. Then, using a nail file, carefully take off a tiny amount of the sharp corners at the sides of the tip, which cause whistles. Then hold the reed on with your thumb and move it from side to side in tiny increments to find the (very obvious) place where the ease of playing and resonance are greatest; hold the reed there and very carefully put on the ligature. Take extra care to make sure there is no non-sealing areas, particularly at the corners of the tip of the reed.
Finally, make sure the bottom of the reed is absolutely flat and smooth.
Don't forget to check the condition of your instrument. Pad tightness is more important as you go higher. Even the tiniest leak, particularly in the upper joint, can make the horn impossible to play up high. Also, the less the register key opens the better. It's easy to experiment by putting one or more layers of adhesive tape under the bottom end of the register key touch. While you're at it, take off the register key and clean out the tube with a pipe cleaner and a drop or two of isopropyl alcohol.
The mouthpiece makes a difference, of course. An open mouthpiece is more difficult to play softly in the altissimo, but, on the other hand, it's is less fussy about reeds. For me, it's been worthwhile to go to a closer lay and spend more time adjusting reeds.
Different barrel bores can also affect control of the high notes. Try a Moennig or Chadash barrel. Better yet, go to a custom mouthpiece maker and get a mouthpiece and barrel matched to your instrument and your playing style.
In the end, all the abstract description can't do nearly as much as a teacher who can hear and see exactly what you’re doing. Also, if you're not in a playing group, you should be. Playing with a group is a tremendous charge, and with other people to play along with, you don't feel so bad about missing a note or not getting one of the high notes just right.
Practice makes perfect, but playing with others makes pleasure, and counts as practice.
Keep us posted on your progress.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Marc Meurin
Date: 1999-07-12 18:04
The more of the mouthpiece you 'bite' the harder it is to control the sound but the sound will be larger. You have to strenghten the muscles by practicing long tones every day. You should be able to blow easily throughout the range, so you have to choose the reed which makes this possible. It may be a large bore mouthpiece which requires a weaker reed...anywhere from a 1-1/2 on up. I have found the VanDoren to be a very good reed especially for jazz. Good luck.
Marc Meurin
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