 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2010-04-09 17:39
The recent threads on mouthpiece patches, teeth mark, biting and double lip embouchure have led me to really think about what I do.
I have teeth marks on my mouthpiece patch in fact not only do I go through them fast, they also tend to slide to a side as I guess my embouchure is not perfectly symmetrical.
Now, I don't claim to know everything about the clarinet, I am not a pro, not even a college level player, but I have taken enough lessons from both single lippers and double lippers to know that I don't bite and that I have overall good control of my sound across all registers.
Yet I am also pretty sure I exert significant pressure on my top teeth. This pressure does not come from the teeth to the mouthpiece, but rather from from pushing the clarinet upwards *to ensure* that I don't bite.
As far as I understand physics, I think the most important aspect of the embouchure for the sound are the parts of the lips that do touch the reed (i.e. the lower lip), and the overall seal (no one likes the shhhhhhhhhhhh/pfffffffffff sound). The lower lip can indeed be greatly influenced by what one does with the upper lip, yet this is a *indirect* connection to the reed.
So I do challenge the idea that bite marks on the top of the mouthpiece are *inherently* bad. They are an indication that the interface between upper teeth and mouthpiece is under pressure, but not necessarily an indication of of biting and by extension a poor embouchure.
I even suggest that the ability to vary this pressure with the right hand and/or the upper lip is a useful skill to learn.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: mrn
Date: 2010-04-09 18:28
Sylvain wrote:
> So I do challenge the idea that bite marks on the top of the
> mouthpiece are *inherently* bad. They are an indication that
> the interface between upper teeth and mouthpiece is under
> pressure, but not necessarily an indication of of biting and by
> extension a poor embouchure.
Just based on my experience, I would agree with that.
Other way of looking at this is that you don't want to use your bottom lip/jaw to support the instrument. You support the weight of the instrument on your thumb, and your mouth merely provides a downward stopping force from your upper teeth and/or upper lip. That leaves your bottom lip free to apply just the right amount of pressure to the reed and no more--the same reason violin teachers tell their students to support the instrument solely using the chin and shoulder (and why many use shoulder rests, too), so the physical support of the instrument doesn't interfere with finger technique.
That being said, however, I tend to think that the main reason a lot of people bite is because they play on reeds that are either too hard or so out of balance that they seem hard, and not necessarily because something is fundamentally flawed with their embouchure. It's hard not to bite if your reeds are uncooperative.
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Author: kilo
Date: 2010-04-09 19:08
Thank you for a refreshingly independent and very sensible take on the subject. As I mentioned in the recent patch thread I have had a noticeable mark on the beak of my mouthpiece for many years, directly underneath one prominent front tooth but I've yet to break through into the chamber. I can still hear my teacher from decades ago (who just died in January) telling me to "push up", lesson after lesson.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2010-04-09 20:23
Prof Todd Deljuidice at EWU presented a short "how to" on clarinet playing at ClariNEXUS last month.
He instructed to press the mouthpiece against the upper teeth pressure from the right thumb.
Bob Phillips
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Author: grifffinity
Date: 2010-04-09 22:13
I'm a double lip player (for about 10 years) and for the record, I have teeth marks on the inside of my upper lip.
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2010-04-09 22:24
MRN,
I've experienced the very opposite of what you wrote about hard reeds encouraging biting.
Those students of mine who have biting problems frequently bite because they're trying too hard to control reeds softer than what they should be playing for their set ups.
As I've written elsewhere here, with my students and in my own playing, given a proper mouthpiece and embouchure formation, harder reeds are much easier to control (though harder to blow).
B.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2010-04-10 12:14
AFAIK, the typical player manages a thin strip of lip over the lower teeth before placing the clarinet reed on that strip (as opposed to the sax which prefers a thicker, bunched up lip)
While the lip is in this state, I cannot see how any muscles associated directly with the lip, are capable of pressing this thin strip of lip upwards.
And surely the clarinet exerts negligible pressure against the lower lip simply from gravity.
So to press the lower lip against the reed (In order to close th reed just the right amount to control the sound), we rely on support from the lower teeth, with the jaw closed precisely the right amount to gain the lip pressure against the reed that is desired.
Surely this jaw action comes into the definition of "biting". Surely we all do it, except for the odd player play equally well with all their front lower teeth missing!
And surely the paranoid talk about that terrible thing, biting, refers then to EXCESSIVE biting.
If we make such a song and dance to beginners about not biting, then surely they must be wondering just how to play with a controlled sound.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2010-04-10 14:44
Gordon (NZ) wrote:
> If we make such a song and dance to beginners about not biting,
> then surely they must be wondering just how to play with a
> controlled sound.
I think there's some truth to that. Thinking back to my own experience, I cannot recall a time when my teacher ever told me, "Don't bite."
On the other hand, she did teach me how to apply downward upper-lip force to play clean-sounding slurred intervals across registers (as in the first half of the Copland Concerto, where you have lots of slurs into and out of the altissimo) without a break in the sound.
But when we delved into this topic, I had been playing clarinet for a number of years. (I started with the same teacher at age 9, too, so it was not as if I had a different teacher telling me to do things differently than a previous one.)
Having achieved some measure of success with this technique and to understand what it feels like when done properly, I have come to realize what the instruction to not bite really means.
I was able to do this as readily as I did, though, because I approached the subject with a particular audible goal in mind. I don't think that a blanket instruction not to bite--especially if given when I was a beginner--would have helped me much. It simply would not have made much sense, and I would not have had any criteria upon which to judge my own progress. "Don't bite" is really much more complex than the words "don't bite" imply, and without having some firsthand experience in playing "without biting," it's really difficult to understand what it means.
I think perhaps this is one reason why this topic comes up so frequently, and why double lip is so often suggested as a teaching tool, even for us single-lip players. If you can somehow capture the experience what the instrument does when you "don't bite" and understand how that feels and what it sounds like, you can transfer that concept to single lip playing. I think the rationale behind using double lip "therapeutically" is along those lines.
You don't HAVE to use double lip to learn this, though, as I just mentioned. What I do think is important, however, is to have some kind of way of evaluating your own progress so that you, through practice, can lead yourself to the goal.
If you don't have that, it's kind of like blanket instructions about tongue position--they're aren't that useful because they don't relate to the results, only the method (and hence are not a suitable standard for self-evaluation in individual practice).
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Author: mrn
Date: 2010-04-10 15:17
bmcgar wrote
Quote:
MRN,
I've experienced the very opposite of what you wrote about hard reeds encouraging biting.
Those students of mine who have biting problems frequently bite because they're trying too hard to control reeds softer than what they should be playing for their set ups.
I can see that happening. A harder reed will be more forgiving in that regard. There's a lot of "yin" and "yang" with reeds.
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