 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kev182
Date: 2009-04-16 04:14
What can physically be altered in a mouthpiece that plays high to lower its pitch? and will it change its' playing characteristics
I am talking about a Hawkins R mouthpiece that plays very sharp throat A, throat Bb and all of Chalumeau register. The higher I go on the instrument, the more in tune it seems. C6 and anything close to it is in tune.
Post Edited (2009-04-16 14:17)
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-16 04:44
I suppose one possible solution might be to glue (with a really strong adhesive) a rubber O-ring of the appropriate diameters and thickness to the end of the mouthpiece tenon. That would make it longer--might stick out of the barrel socket a tad and look a little weird, but it should lower the pitch. You'd have to do some experimenting to make this work, of course.
And then, of course, there's always the tried and true method--use a longer barrel with it.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2009-04-16 09:34
Sounds like the wrong way to go, get the longer barrell.
Bob Draznik
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Author: Chris J
Date: 2009-04-16 10:43
I don't think you will get much further with this thread without further specific information about your problem and intentions regarding a solution.
Specific to your question, I understand that if exit bore of the mouthpiece were to be narrower than the bore of the instrument (ie standard or narrow bore mpc on a large bore instrument) the result might be an overall sharp instrument, particularly in the upper range. Others may be able to verify that as actual, rather than something I made up while in a particularly vivid dream!..... If that were the case, then widening the exit bore of the mpc would flatten it.
There are alot of ifs and buts there, though, and your set up seems pretty standard.
So if you have a flat set-up, then the Board needs a bit more of the diagnostics to help
Have you tried your mouthpiece on a different instrument - and it is good?
Have you tried a different mouthpiece on your instrument?
What length barrel are you using?
What is your perceived problem, and are you looking for solutions for this - or is your post nothing more than the question you asked on the outset?
Chris
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2009-04-16 11:16
The baffle can be deepened and the chamber enlarged. These changes will darken (or deaden, if overdone) the tone quality as well as lower the overall pitch.
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Author: clancy
Date: 2009-04-16 11:22
How does it play high - is it uniformly sharp or sharper in certain registers?
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2009-04-16 13:11
I would go "trial and error" on this. Try the Berg larsen "bullet" approach. Rather than alter the front of the baffle try digging out the back of the baffle as is common in the Berg. Do something drastic to a cheap mouthpiece to enlarge the interior volume and test it.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2009-04-16 13:16
"What can physically be done to a mouthpiece that plays high?"
Throw it very hard against a brick wall? :-)
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Author: Chris Hill
Date: 2009-04-16 13:48
Anything you do to the mouthpiece to lower the pitch will change the sound, so, if you really like this mouthpiece, change the barrel instead.
One thing that I notice is that you are playing on an M13 Lyre mouthpiece. These generally tend to be lower than most to begin with, due to a large bore and a deep baffle. The three things I would start with if I were trying to lower the pitch on a mouthpiece would be to enlarge the bore deepen the baffle, and widen the chamber. The third thing would be to extend the length of the bore. Again, the bore length on all of the 13 series Vandoren mouthpieces I've tried is sufficient.
Chris J. has the right idea- if there is a problem with the set-up, it is probably not the Vandoren mouthpiece.
Chris
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Author: kev182
Date: 2009-04-16 14:17
I'm actually not talking about my Vandoren mouthpiece but a Hawkins R mouthpiece that plays very sharp throat A, throat Bb and all of Chalumeau register. The higher I go on the instrument, the more in tune it seems. C6 and anything close to it is in tune.
It's not the clarinet and getting a longer barrel wouldn't affect the areas that are sharp. Even when pulled out significantly at the barrel and middle joint, the pitch is still high. Low B is always sharp... no matter how much I pull out
Post Edited (2009-04-16 14:20)
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Author: JJAlbrecht
Date: 2009-04-16 14:26
Maybe send it back to Richard Hawkins and see what he can do with it? Better to have the craftsman who created it make the alterations than to try yourself.
Jeff
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-04-16 16:09
>>Maybe send it back to Richard Hawkins and see what he can do with it? Better to have the craftsman who created it make the alterations than to try yourself.
>>
That's what I'd do. Or else (as a collector of miscellaneous clarinets with various deficiencies) I'd try that mouthpiece with a clarinet that (with other mouthpieces) plays flat where that mouthpiece plays sharp. Some combinations of mouthpiece and clarinet just don't work, but the mouthpiece that's terrible on one instrument can solve a problem on another.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2009-04-16 16:48
Have you shown it to any of the IU clarinet staff?
Also, what does it do on a friend's clarinet?
Maybe call Hawkins.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: Ed
Date: 2009-04-16 16:58
Have others play it on your instrument, on their instruments, and try others mouthpieces on your instrument. Before you start drastically altering a mouthpiece, I would eliminate the variables of you and your instrument. In this way you will know for sure if there are not other issues to consider. I would then send it to Hawkins and see what he says.
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Author: mnorswor
Date: 2009-04-16 17:16
I agree with Chris Hill. Deepen the baffle, widen the chamber or lengthen the bore. All of the above basically increase the volume inside the mouthpiece, lowering the pitch.
Have you also thought of just calling Richie and having him send you others? I mean, they're Zinner blanks and not all that expensive. Seems that this is not some super valuable vintage mouthpiece that you're worried about changing. And if you do change one of the three things mentioned above, you may create other problems. So, why not go back to the maker and find something that really does work for YOU without having to change things around too drastically.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-16 17:28
Kevin wrote:
<<It's not the clarinet and getting a longer barrel wouldn't affect the areas that are sharp. Even when pulled out significantly at the barrel and middle joint, the pitch is still high. Low B is always sharp... no matter how much I pull out>>
I'm not a mouthpiece guy (so I'm just taking an educated guess here based on outside engineering knowledge--what I'm saying is nothing more than a hypothesis, in other words), but it sounds like your mouthpiece is somehow overly resonant and starting to dominate the tug-of-war between the frequency at which the mouthpiece and reed want to vibrate by themselves and the frequency the clarinet wants to pull the reed's frequency down to. Arthur Benade calls the result of this tug-of-war the "regime of oscillation." You see this kind of thing (really strong resonators being hard to "pull" in frequency) in electronics, which is what made me think of this.
I suppose one way you might be able to figure out if this is going on is to compare the tuning of the mouthpiece and reed by themselves with that of another mouthpiece. If the tuning is really close, then I'm inclined to think that it has more to do with how resonant the mouthpiece is than it does with the actual tuning of the mouthpiece. A mouthpiece and reed combo by itself naturally wants to resonate at a higher frequency than the chalumeau register, so it would make sense to me that if the mouthpiece was too strongly self-resonant, it would have a tendency to pull all your low notes sharp. In theory, the same tuning problem would also occur if you had a small leak in your clarinet somewhere (which is yet another reason why trying the mouthpiece with another clarinet would be informative--I'm assuming you've already tried that, though). So I would be interested to know if you can measure a tuning difference with just the mouthpiece and reed.
In the electronics analogy, the further away you get from a strong resonator's natural frequency (e.g., the resonant frequency of a quartz crystal) the harder it is to pull the oscillator to that frequency. I'm wondering if this is the same thing going on here with your mouthpiece.
Of course, how you go about fixing that problem is a question for the mouthpiece experts...
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Author: Chris Hill
Date: 2009-04-16 22:55
Now that I noticed that it's a Hawkins that you're talking about, I'd call Richard. He's a nice guy, and easy to work with.
Chris
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Author: Vytas
Date: 2009-04-16 23:48
Very sharp throat tones is very clear indication that your mouthpiece is tuned higher than A=440HZ. Take Chris' advice: >"The three things I would start with if I were trying to lower the pitch on a mouthpiece would be to enlarge the bore, deepen the baffle, and widen the chamber".<
BTW I got sick and almost threw up after reading all this scientific stuff above.
Vytas Krass
Custom clarinet mouthpiece maker
Professional clarinet technician
Former professional clarinet player
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2009-04-17 01:02
How about Hawkins suggestion I've heard he make about pulling the mouthpiece slightly out of the barrel socket to lower it's pitch ?
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-17 04:31
Vytas wrote:
<<BTW I got sick and almost threw up after reading all this scientific stuff above.
>>
Well, Vytas, you know the only reason I wrote all that stuff was just to get your goat.
Seriously, though, it does seem strange to me that a mouthpiece that is merely *tuned* high (say, to 442 rather than 440) would continue to pull the chalumeau tones sharp even after pulling out the barrel a bunch (which is what Kevin reported above). I say that because I used to play on a A=442 mouthpiece (a Gigliotti) in an A=440 ensemble and all I had to do was just pull out my barrel to tune with everyone else. And people play on A=442 Vandoren mouthpieces in A=440 ensembles all the time and manage to be able to tune to a tuning machine just fine.
You make mouthpieces--is there a simple explanation for why one mouthpiece might continue to play sharp no matter how far one pulls out the barrel, while another mouthpiece that plays sharp readily responds to barrel-pulling?
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Author: stimsonaa
Date: 2009-04-18 20:21
One factor to consider is that various ranges of the instrument are more or less susceptible to variations in pitch. Burt Hara (MN Orch) warns against people complaining of flat throat tones when they are actually biting, which causes the higher notes to go sharp. The solution in that case is to push in (as a player with this habit will probably be pulled out a bunch) and then learn to not play sharp on the high stuff.
This is not the same problem of course, but could be a related phenomenon. It could be that the combination of mouthpiece, reed strength, and playing style that you are used to causes the high notes to be flat (I am referring to the pitch relative to the whole instrument rather than a specific pitch standard) and that by comparison the low notes seem sharp where you set your barrel. Just a different way to look at it - the high notes may be the ones that are "wrong" since they are more flexible intonationally typically. Perhaps try a harder reed? Hawkins makes very narrow tip openings, at least on the S which I play on, which has caused me to use significantly harder reeds than on my old Van. B45.
Albert Stimson
Midwest Musical Imports
www.mmimports.com
albert@mmimports.com
Post Edited (2009-04-18 20:49)
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