 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: jeeves
Date: 2008-11-06 01:20
I'm getting a private teacher soon, but could someone post a picture of a "perfect" single-lip embouchure, please?
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Author: vin
Date: 2008-11-06 02:06
In my humble opinion, you really will just confuse yourself no matter what picture someone gives you. What happens inside your mouth is half, probably more than half the battle. Let the sound be your guide. There are plenty of world class players who don't have a perfect looking embouchure- Mike Rusinek, for one, plays out the side of his mouth. Get a recording of your favorite clarinet player and try to imitate it, and get a good teacher.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-11-06 02:36
I agree with the above. It so much depends on your lip, teeth and general mouth features. It may look perfect and not work well, or look a bit different and work great. ESP www.peabody.jhu.edu/457 Listen to a little Mozart, live.
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Author: Old Geezer
Date: 2008-11-07 16:19
Larry Guy's book "Embouchure Building for Clarinetists" will be very useful for you...there's lots of pictures of correct embouchure positions etc. It's best used with a good teacher but can be a life saver for the self taught.
Clarinet Redux
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Author: Old Geezer
Date: 2008-11-07 23:26
Being an old line philatelist I'm quite familiar with the excesses of pedantry...such as two enormous volumes with hundreds and hundreds of small print pages about one single postage stamp of the 19th century! However I believe this dissertation hits the absolute nadir of lunatic pedantry! How anyone could improve their embouchure by reading this stuff is beyond belief! There is a lot of unintended humor though....
Clarinet Redux
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-11-08 05:15
Old Geezer wrote:
> However I believe this
> dissertation hits the absolute nadir of lunatic pedantry! How
> anyone could improve their embouchure by reading this stuff is
> beyond belief! There is a lot of unintended humor though....
:) I never said reading it would help anyone actually improve their embouchure. All I said was that it discussed two different kinds of single-lip embouchure and gave some decent pictures. All of that stuff is in the first chapter or two.
I don't suggest that anyone seriously read the whole thing. Reading page after page of statistics about which embouchure more band directors prefer just doesn't sound like fun to me.
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2008-11-08 05:18
MRN, thanks for providing this link. The different types of embouchures mentioned reminded me of something that I read a long time ago where the author referred to the "hard cushion" and "soft cushion" embouchures.
All of my teachers were definitely from the hard cushion school, although I was always taught not to smile. I think I use a hybrid approach if such a thing is possible. I've studied with many teachers over the years, and none of them ever came close to teaching the "oo" approach.
The so-called soft cushion approach, the "oo" or drawstring embouchure, reminds me so much of the standard saxophone embouchure. I play some sax, but I wouldn't call myself an expert. If there are any serious sax players reading this, I'm curious to know if there really is any difference between the "ooh or soft cushion" approach and the standard sax embouchure.
In the dissertation, the author mentions Bruce Pearson (Best in Class and Standard of Excellence) as recommending the "oo" or drawstring embouchure. I'm not sure that this is quite true, although I don't blame the author for this minor mistake. I had the chance several years ago to meet Pearson and attend a workshop he presented. I don't recall hearing him say anything about a drawstring. If I remember correctly, he suggested teaching young students to say "oo - ee." The lips in that position was his embouchure suggestion. This isn't exactly soft cushion, but it isn't quite hard cushion either.
I could be wrong--please feel free to correct me if you think I am--but I think the old traditional very firm hard cushion smile approach is obselete today. I think there are probably many players who do what I do, and play with a hybrid approach.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-11-08 06:07
clarinetguy wrote:
> All of my teachers were definitely from the hard cushion
> school, although I was always taught not to smile. I think I
> use a hybrid approach if such a thing is possible. I've
> studied with many teachers over the years, and none of them
> ever came close to teaching the "oo" approach.
Your embouchure sounds a lot like mine. I tend to think the name "smile embouchure" is a misnomer. I've never thought of what I do as being all that smile-like, even though I am most definitely a "hard cushion" player. Even the picture in the dissertation of a "smile embouchure" actually looks more like what I do than it does a smile. If I REALLY tried to smile, I'd probably leak a lot of air. So I kind of think that "smile" embouchure people don't really smile, per se.
I seem to remember an old post on here about Marcellus thinking the so-called "smile" embouchure was obsolete. He apparently taught the "Q" embouchure, as it is referred to in the dissertation.
What I thought was interesting (aside from "smile" players not really smiling) was the discussion of the spectral characteristics of the two embouchures and the notion that the hard-cushion embouchure introduces richer harmonic content into the sound, which. aside from adding some "brightness" to the sound, also makes it carry well. I've never had a problem being able to be heard over other instruments, and this paper leads me to believe that the kind of "hard cushion" embouchure I use may have something to do with that.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-11-08 08:46
So.....jeeves.....you've already decided on single lip!
Bob Draznik
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-11-08 15:37
Mike wrote:
>> There is actually more than one kind of single-lip embouchure. See the below dissertation for a discussion of two commonly-taught kinds, with pictures.>>
I suppose I'd want to say that there is an infinity of embouchures, since one's embouchure changes according to the demands of the moment, not to mention the necessity of playing on different reeds.
I notice I'm in there; but what she quotes me as saying is better expressed in:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2002/04/000770.txt
Tony
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-11-08 16:07
Tony Pay wrote:
> I suppose I'd want to say that there is an infinity of
> embouchures, since one's embouchure changes according to the
> demands of the moment, not to mention the necessity of playing
> on different reeds.
That's true. I suppose any truly honest discussion of different "types" of embouchure really ought to say that each of these "model embouchures" is really more of a "starting place" or an archetype/prototype than it is something to hold constant for its own sake.
Once you get a feel for the instrument, you tend to stop thinking so much about these fundamental sorts of things (at least I did). Until you have to teach them to someone else, that is--it's really quite amazing how much self-analysis and attention to detail it takes to be able to teach an instrument. I didn't realize just how much I took for granted until I started to try to explain to my son how to do it.
Thanks for the link to your Klarinet post, Tony, by the way. That was a good read!
Post Edited (2008-11-08 16:19)
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