 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Meri
Date: 2000-09-27 18:00
I don't know about how you guys have been taught, but it recently came clear to me two opposing opinions on how much reed and mouthpiece there should be in the mouth. One view is that there should be much more reed than mouthpiece (Pino supports this view), the other (the one that my teacher supports, but I have a hard time changing to--although it is getting easier) is that there should be much more mouthpiece than reed.
How have you guys been taught? Which is generally considered 'better', and why?
Meri
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-09-27 19:23
Since the clarinet and thus the mouthpiece angles down, how is it even possible to have more mouthpiece than reed in the mouth?
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2000-09-28 01:12
'At least' one box of reed including ten(10) per month should be consumed as a barometer of how dilligently the player exercises. However this should assume yield, i.e. usable reeds, to be 2 out of ten. 8 to store or trash box. Yield of 2 out of 10 seems not so low from professinal criteria.
Frequently changing mouthpiece is taught to be avoided since embouchure needs some period, more than a month, to be accustomed to a specific mouthpiece.
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Author: Ken Rasmussen
Date: 2000-09-28 04:05
You mean you shouldn't put the bell in your mouth and suck? No wonder I've been having so much difficulty!!!
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Author: Lelia
Date: 2000-09-28 12:26
I seem to get about 30 hours out of a good reed. If a reed lasts fewer than 20 hours, I'm ticked off. I were only getting two playable reeds out of a box of ten, I think I'd switch to the flute!
;-)
I use mostly Mitchell Lurie Premiums (Vandorens on alto clarinet and eefer) and generally use every reed in the box. With the Vandorens, I do expect to discard some reeds as not worth the trouble of tinkering with them, but even then I'm using 6 to 8 out of the box. The Mitchell Luries aren't all perfect, but they're consistent, and almost all good enough, and I think that working around the imperfections improves my abilities.
Although I do have a "waste not, want not" mentality, there's also a musical reason to go ahead and use reeds that aren't the best: I don't want to get dependent on having a fine reed or otherwise specific conditions in order to be able to play. Adaptability, making the best of a less-than-ideal situation, is a useful skill to learn, too, IMHO -- though I won't torture myself with a truly defective reed. At the same time, I don't want to train myself to *need* the peculiarities of a particular reed, so I keep several broken in and rotate which one I use. I've found that with a few hours of playing time, a reed that seemed bad at first will often seem all right, I think simply because I've adjusted to it.
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Author: Larry
Date: 2000-09-29 17:57
Seems like a clitch in the message board (or the conversants) - are there two different conversations going on here? Actually looks like one conversation and one attempted humorous response.
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Author: Ken Rasmussen
Date: 2000-09-30 05:36
It seems to me that the reeds that play well out of the box only last a little while. The ones that are too stiff are the ones that last and last. I like to practice high notes for a few minutes with the reeds that are too stiff--that seems to be the one thing they do well, then put them away for a day or two, and do it again. Sometimes they break in, sometimes I have to scrape them a little, alternately playing and scraping. When reeds get too soft to play well I try clipping a little off the end--as little as possible. Often times that will give them a new lease on life. I use four reeds in rotation, and put new reeds into the rotation as the old ones become unusable. I think resting reeds makes them last longer too. With rotation, scraping, and clipping, I'm able to use almost all the reeds (I like Glotens) and they last a long time.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2000-10-02 07:05
This is a fun staff, maybe.
Vandoren: 2RV,5RV,B40,B44,B45, 5RV-profile88, B40-profile88, M13-Lyle
Selmer C85-115, C85-120,
Pomarico:Crystal, Grenadilla
Morgan,
Marcellus,
Kasper-cicero(#13), Kasper-Andover(spell?),
Charles Bay,
Greg Smith-Chedeville, Kasper Style.
Total 18. Maybe there were others. Less than the number of reeds I consumed.
("A drowning man will catch at a straw" case....)
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