 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: genieman123
Date: 2007-02-15 20:12
What should your embrochure be like to acheive the best possible sound?
Andrew
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-02-15 22:10
I can only say that I personally use a firm embouchure to get the sound I want. Maybe that's not deemed right by other players who have their own ideas, but it works for me.
If you have an idea of the sound you like, try every means you can think of to get as near to it as possible, but you must have a particular sound in mind to aim for.
But the best thing is to be inspired - listen to your favourite player and try to emulate their sound.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2007-02-15 22:53
Yes, the idea is to have a firm embouchure. That is, you must engage all the muscles around your lips (perhaps thinking of the whole mess as a rubberband wrapped around your mouthpiece). So engaging the upper lip area as well as cheek muscles (buccinators) is imperative.
Also, there was some thread recently that spoke of pressure on the mouthpiece as if there should be conscious jaw pressure involved. I would highly object to anything that even remotely would suggest the "B" word - biting.
All that said, I still feel that the key to good tone is a very STEADY, supported stream of air. There was a thread some time ago in which Tony Pay spoke of a box like device that played clarinet just fine using a rubber diaphragm doohicky in place of an embouchure. Air is the key.
.........Paul Aviles
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-02-15 23:00
Yep, keep the air going - that's what my clarinet teacher told me to do - keep the air going and all else will follow.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: John O'Janpa
Date: 2007-02-15 23:27
Like good man! (pun intended)
"If it sounds good it is good. " (Duke Ellington?)
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Author: allclarinets
Date: 2007-02-16 21:33
I say "Wrinkle your top lip and allow this behavior to flatten your chin." I say this to students alot. It's great because the lip is pulled quite far from the reed. This not only allows for tonal development....development is the key for me. Plus, it allows you to play in tune above the staff.
Good luck!
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2007-02-18 09:45
Paul Aviles wrote:
> All that said, I still feel that the key to good tone is a very
> STEADY, supported stream of air. There was a thread some time
> ago in which Tony Pay spoke of a box like device that played
> clarinet just fine using a rubber diaphragm doohicky in place
> of an embouchure. Air is the key.
I wouldn't want to disagree with your CONCLUSION, because 'air is the key', as an overall mantra, could hardly be bettered. But I should point out that the 'hippopotamus' post was directed at something else entirely, to do with mouth resonances. The gadget played the clarinet 'just fine' in the sense that you could play notes over the whole clarinet range, including the the altissimo register. (I wouldn't book it for any serious musical work, however:-)
My own view on embouchure is a bit similar to Richard Feynman's view on his job as a young man on the Los Alamos Project, of telling the workers at Oak Ridge to be careful not not to put too much radioactive material together so as not to set off a chain reaction. He came to the conclusion that though you could set up a system of RULES that the workers had to obey, it was impossible to guarantee safety without explaining to them WHY the rules were to be followed. (Remember that the very possibility of a chain reaction was a closely guarded secret at the time.)
The authorities took some persuading, but they finally agreed; and when the amazing details of what they were actually doing were revealed to them, the workers were able to understand (for example) the profoundly counterintuitive notion that the danger was much greater if the uranium 235 salts were dissolved in water, due to the slowing of the neutrons by the water molecules, and therefore take special care in those circumstances.
Anyhow, you can obey all these Great-Masters-of-the-Clarinet-type rules -- like, keep your chin flat, don't bite, etc etc -- but in my view you're better off if you have some understanding of what an embouchure DOES.
Then you can OWN the rules, and use them -- or modify them -- according to whether or not you find them helpful.
Try:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2002/04/000770.txt
Tony
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