 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Wyatt
Date: 1999-02-28 04:18
I've been playing the clarinet since last Christmas...up to lesson 35 in the elementary technique book, learning where all the buttons are. Often, when I'm trying to play my smoothest, the horn starts squeaking on every tongued note. What's up? My instructor approves of the horn, and my reeds. Lips are doing their thing as usual. Why do clarinets squeak?
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Author: Rick2
Date: 1999-02-28 05:42
I think we need more specific information from you. What exactly is your setup, what kind and stiffness of reeds, what book are you up to lesson 35 in, what notes are you trying to play when you squeek, etc, etc.
There are a number of reasons why we squeek. Here are a few common ones:
* Overblowing
* Too much mouthpiece in mouth
* Too little mouthpiece in mouth
* Pinching the reed
* flubber lip emboucher
* Cracking open a throat key by accident
* Poor finger placement on the tone holes
* Leaky pad
* Old cork on tenons allowing a leak
* keywork out of regulation (out of adjustment)
* being a beginner
I'm sure I missed several.
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Author: Dee
Date: 1999-02-28 14:45
Rick2 covered most of them but here is another.
Jaw movement. A LOT of beginners move their jaws when tonguing. This will yield either squeaks or slow tonguing or bad tone or combinations of these undesireable results.
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Author: Melissa
Date: 1999-02-28 18:23
See, through my learning experiences (I've played for 10 months, so I'm new, too) I have learned that clarinet players are so wonderful and talented that all the other instruments have to have a way to make fun of the clarinets, so one halfway intelligent person made a device that goes into clarinets and make them squeak. And, since the other band players had so much fun with it, they put it on the black market and they're everywhere! (ignore that, it's a bunch of crap and I just had to say it)
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Author: Meredith
Date: 1999-02-28 22:48
I attended a master class recently and the guy said that the reason for a squeak is that often times we "voice" notes and squeaks often result from over estimating the pitch of a note and "voicing" the note too high.
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Author: Rick2
Date: 1999-03-01 15:17
That's good to know, and explains why I'm only overblowing by an eleventh instead of a twelfth now that I'm becoming more experienced. Maybe another fifteen years and I'll only be voicing a third high. Really though, I have no idea what voicing too high could possibly mean. (Despite the stated fact that this came from a master class...maybe I'm just too niave to know better.)
For me anymore, I only squeek when I hit a throat key by accident, or I'm trying to play an unamplified clarinet over an amplified keyboard that's turned up too high. I try to play as loud as possible and forget to loosen up my emboucher and sure enough, it overblows.
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