 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: lucy
Date: 2001-02-16 21:03
Hi! I have been playing a B flat yamaha clarinet for 5 years. my upper register has a pinched sound. i am using a 3 reed. does anyone have any suggestions for improving my sound? Thanks!
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-02-16 21:37
Many people have inadequate air support and an undeveloped or incorrect embouchure. As a result, they play flat on the higher notes. They subconsciously try to correct the situation by "biting" or "pinching" the reed. This gives a pinched sound in the upper registers.
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Author: Anji
Date: 2001-02-17 15:20
What Dee said,
I'm in the same boat, with my teacher working me over in this venue.
LOTS more air in a very tight focus works (but it's hard to maintain).
I concentrate on getting the upper lip tight (and I mean, open bottle caps TIGHT) from C and above.
Surprisingly, when I play double lip, these notes just pop out. I know my double lip embouchure is not as tight as biting, so you do the math.
Everybody bites the reed, it makes sense to do so and doesn't work.
My challenge, now, is to play these notes softly.
Hope this helps,
anju
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Author: Mark Pinner
Date: 2001-02-17 21:13
If your clarinet is a plastic yamaha c100 or similar that may be part of your problem they are just shocking above high C.
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Author: Corey
Date: 2001-02-18 03:04
if you are playing on a plastic clarinet that probably is your problem!, because plastic doesn't have the advantage to vibrate like wood which helps the sound very much-- i play a buffet e-11 and my sounds in the high registers are great! after five years on a plastic clarinet you need to step-up to the great sound of grenadilla wood clarinets........ hopefully this should help you!
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-02-18 03:30
Corey wrote:
>
> if you are playing on a plastic clarinet that probably is
> your problem!, because plastic doesn't have the advantage to
> vibrate like wood which helps the sound very much-- i play a
> buffet e-11 and my sounds in the high registers are great!
> after five years on a plastic clarinet you need to step-up to
> the great sound of grenadilla wood clarinets........ hopefully
> this should help you!
Material has nothing to do with the sound quality. The most important factor in sound quality is the the ability of the player. The second most important factor in sound quality is the mouthpiece and reed. The instrument itself comes in third as far as importance. It's sound quality is determined strictly by the quality of design, construction, finishing details, adjustment, etc.
It so happens that the majority of plastic clarinets are student grade instruments. Student grade instruments are mass produced and get no individual fine adjustments and so on. Try playing on some of the old wooden student grade ones if you can find them and you will discover that they are no better than the modern plastics.
You can get a vastly improved sound out of a plastic clarinet simply by using a professional grade mouthpiece paired with high quality reeds.
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Author: Anji
Date: 2001-02-18 21:46
Lucy,
Snake oil still comes in lots of bottles.
There are very few unplayable horns out there, mostly from Chinese makers so your horn is probably JUST FINE. Marketing departments are always trying to convince buyers that what they have isn't sufficient to the task.
Golfers, skiers, tennis players and musicians are suckers for this sort of thing.
***************************
DON'T BITE THE HYPE.
****************************
Put an experienced player behind a curtain with a wooden horn and a plastic horn and you will be hard pressed to say which horn is which.
This business about what material makes the best horn is a sack full or horse feathers...
The best player in my area plays a battered metal clarinet that looks like it spent the better part of its life under a truck, and his tone is whatever he wants to make.
What Dee said... Lucy, it is about you and the reed.
No need to spend a kilobuck to get the notes a few more lessons and better reeds will reach.
I know exactly the sort of struggle you describe, and as a beginner, I suspect there are others fighting the good fight.
Equipment is the least important part of clarinet playing.
If you can get a straight approach to the problem from your teacher, please let us know about your progress.
anji
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Author: Corey
Date: 2001-02-19 02:11
YES material it's made of does effect the sound, duh!!! i can tell the difference from a plastic clarinet from a wood one and i definetly hate the sound of plastic clarinets there sooooooo out of tune and do sound very pinched in the high register plastic does not vibrate as well as wood...do some research, Dee please!
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-02-19 02:48
Corey wrote:
>
> YES material it's made of does effect the sound, duh!!! i
> can tell the difference from a plastic clarinet from a wood one
> and i definetly hate the sound of plastic clarinets there
> sooooooo out of tune and do sound very pinched in the high
> register plastic does not vibrate as well as wood...do some
> research, Dee please!
Corey,
Where have you done your research? Dee, I and others <b>have</b> done a good deal of research which points to materials per se not affecting the tone. Please point us to the material you've read or published so we can evaluate it. Dee is a mechanical / heat transfer engineer; I've worked as a nuclear, hydraulic and acoustic engineer along with doing mathematical simulations of physical properties. We await your presentation.
Thank you.
Mark C.
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Author: Corey
Date: 2001-02-19 21:24
got some questions then>>> why don't proffesionals use plastic clarinets with high quality reeds and proffesional grade mthpce's?? hmn?? why do they use wood for musical instruments then?? you seem to know so much>>to achieve a better sound! if you used metal for clarinets you wood achieve a totally different sound.you achieve a an ok tone quality with plastic clarinets... better with wood
please reply promptly..........
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-02-19 22:09
Corey wrote:
>
> got some questions then>>> why don't proffesionals use
> plastic clarinets with high quality reeds and proffesional
> grade mthpce's?? hmn?? why do they use wood for musical
> instruments then?? you seem to know so much>>to achieve a
> better sound! if you used metal for clarinets you wood achieve
> a totally different sound.you achieve a an ok tone quality with
> plastic clarinets... better with wood
> please reply promptly
There is a little thing called consumer resistance that is often next to impossible to overcome. The clarinet makers simply are not willing to risk producing a professional grade instrument in plastic. Consumer resistance has killed more good products than any other factor.
Why don't pro players use plastic clarinets with high quality reeds and pro mouthpieces? Simple. A pro is going to make sure that all elements of his setup are pro grade. Right now the choice of pro grade plastic clarinets is limited to the Buffet Greenline and an instrument made by Howarth. Howarths are not common in this country and the bore size happens to be different than that preferred by players in this country so would seldom be chosen by US players. That means a pro player has no choice in plastic instruments. The Buffet Greenline is it and not everyone likes Buffets or if they do like Buffets happen to prefer a model not yet available in the Greenline. Of those who do like Buffets, people who have a horn are not going to replace it. Of those who are buying, some are still brainwashed by the material debate. However this is changing, people are getting tired of cracking instruments and are starting to get on the band wagon.
Oboes are moving even more rapidly to plastic. Upper joints in oboes are so prone to cracking that several makers are offering professional grade oboes with plastic upper joints. And the pro players are buying them and using them.
Until there are two identical pro grade instruments available to compare, one plastic and one wood, you can't attribute the difference in sound to material. You cannot get a valid result by comparing a beginner instrument to a pro instrument.
The Buffet Greenline is a plastic clarinet by the way. The hype about it being ground grenadilla is simply sales hype. The epoxy has to completely coat the sawdust for it to stick together. Thus we end up with what is commonly referred to as a "filled plastic". But it's plastic nevertheless. The reports that come back are that there's no discernable difference in sound between the R-13 and the Greenline R-13. No more than you would find between two wooden R-13s.
The plastic clarinets that you are familiar with are *NOT PROFESSIONAL GRADE*. Student horns normally do not sound as good as pro grade horns due to design not material. A truly good player can compensate for the design deficiencies and make theses student grade ones sound great but they have to work a bit harder at it and on the cheapy Chinese junk and some other second rate brands, it's not worth the effort.
And guess what? Clarinets have been made of metal. But they too hit the consumer resistance barrier. And too many of them were badly designed and badly made. Most were made for the student marching band trade. Just like the plastic horns of today, they gained an undeserved bad reputation. So then people did not want them. The pro horns, "tainted" by the reputation of the junk ones, could not overcome the consumer resistance. The Haynes solid silver, double wall (for insulation), pro grade instrument was reputed to sound great as were the other very rare pro horns.
By the way metal clarinets sound just like any other. I have two of them in my mini collection.
While I play a pro grade Leblanc as my main instrument, I have a plastic Vito for outdoor gigs in questionable weather. Either way I sound like me. My stand partner didn't even notice until I told them and were astonished that a plastic clarinet could sound like that. Naturally on the student horn, I have to pay more attention and work a little harder to get the sound I want but it's not that big a problem. One of the metal horns that I have happens to be a good intermediate instrument made by Noblet. I still sound like me. My family certainly can't tell which one I'm playing just by listening.
If you search this bulletin board, there are articles where tests have been run with the player (an experienced player) behind a screen. The player did use good setups on plastic and wood instruments. The listeners (clarinettists themselves) could not tell which was which.
I would happily trade you my old Pan American wooden student grade that I used to have floating around for a Buffet, Selmer, Leblanc, or Yamaha plastic student grade any day of the week. That old Pan American had dreadful intonation problems. That was the most difficult to play horn that I have had personal experience with.
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Author: Corey
Date: 2001-02-20 00:34
ok thanks i knew that clarinets have been made of metal and all that stuff about oboes.....and no i won't trade u sorry i only have a wood normandy and E-11 so far hoping to get an Eb soprano and a rosewood clarinet someday but funds are limited for me at the time
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Author: George
Date: 2001-02-20 15:23
Dee,
Yes indeed, the sound is most respectable. One of the players in the town band has a Haynes that he sometimes brings - a most interesting instrument. A bit heavy, though. I suppose if you really wanted temperature stability you could fill it with water - then it would be REALLY heavy! I had never seen one until he brought it.
>The Haynes solid silver, double
wall (for insulation), pro grade instrument was reputed to sound great as were the other very
rare pro horns.
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-02-20 18:05
Lucy -
Here's an exercise for improving altissimo tone that I've posted several times.
Start pianissimo on low E, crescendo to a good forte (always under control), press the register key gently to go to middle B and diminuendo back to pp. Then go to F/C, and so on. When you get to A, start going up to the third register (A/E/C#, etc.) as you begin the diminuendo. Work to carry the low register warmth and roundness into the second and third registers. Work the transitional finger motions very slowly. You should not know exactly when you will jump from one register to the next.
Tone quality is controlled first by breath, and next by your lips, tongue, palate and throat.
You have to keep the sound "on the breath." That is, there must be a direct connection from your breath to the sound. The sound has to feel like a part of you. To do this, you have to breathe more deeply that you're probably used to doing. Inhale from the bottom and continue until your rib-cage expands and rises by itself. Then, relax and let the air come out without effort. The feeling is of "relaxing" rather than "blowing."
At first, you may feel that there's not enough resistance. There's a great temptation to close off your throat, as if you were almost coughing or speaking, to give something to blow against. You have to teach yourself what it feels like not to do that.
To keep your sound vibrant, you have to make sure only about half the red part of your lower lip is inside your lower teeth. From that basic position, you can add high harmonics by pulling more of the lip outside your teeth, and cover the sound by putting more lip inside.
Try raising your soft palate (opening your mouth and watching in a mirror will let you connect the feeling and the position). Next, raise the back of your tongue and lower the front of your tongue into a "ski jump" shape.
It helps me to lower my jaw and pucker my lips slightly. (I play double lip full time.) This isn't what you do all the time, and the movements are very slight. Kalmen Opperman says to concentrate on keeping an "OOO" (rhymes with "too") quality in the sound. Concentrate on letting the air flow, rather than blowing.
Finally, listen to the great players, in as many styles as you can. The more you listen, the more possibilities you have, plus getting good examples to learn how to do. It's not enough to have a good tone. You must have many good tones.
This is all easy to say, and a lot to learn. You can't do it all at once, and it helps a lot to have a teacher listening. Do one thing at a time, until you can do it without having to think about it. Then add the next.
There's no end to learning.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-02-20 21:21
On artist quality metal and plastic clarinets --
I tried a silver Haynes several years ago at Ponte's Music Store. It was a fine instrument, but I didn't get it because it was based on a Selmer model (I prefer Buffet) and because the left little finger keys were too short for me. I don't think it was ever filled with water -- you just blew into a tube that went between the inner and outer walls to warm it up.
Ponte also had a pair of H. Bettony silver clarinets, based on a Buffet model. They were great, but too expensive for me at the time.
Silver Selmers come up on eBay about once every 3 or 4 months and sell for $600-1000. Bettony SilvaBets come up every 3 weeks or so and go for $300 or a bit higher.
I just got an H. Bettony silver Eb clarinet, which was not in playble condition but is restorable. My teacher Alexander Williams told me he played one in the New York Philharmonic.
The best BBb contra in the world began life as a plastic Vito. The best Eb contra began as a plastic Beuscher. Kalmen Opperman put in hundreds of hours transforming them. Neither played worth a damn as made. He told me that the Beuscher was literally unplayable. I played both of them about a month ago, and they were amazing. I have read that Charles Bay has done the same with plastic bass clarinets and contras.
I would leap at the chance to get a top quality clarinet in silver or plastic. Flutes and oboes are already there. Heckel bassoons have had the wing joint and the descending part of the boot joint lined with Bakelite plastic for 100 years. Clark Fobes prefers to make plastic-lined barrels. It's only a matter of time.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-02-21 02:29
Corey,
There's a lot of things that are based on incorrect assumptions or bad experiments - we call them collectively "junk science".
Clarinets of the 19th century were often made of boxwood, but it wasn't strong enough to withstand the amount of keywork that got added over. Also, boxwood warps all over the place - every boxwood clarinet I've seen from that era has an oval bore and looks close to a banana. But - the reproductions sure sound just like a clarinet.
Speaking of boxwood ...
The boxwood clarinets are also the reason when we use a thumbrest rather than a strap & thumbrest. The old clarinets were very light and many of the ones I've looked at had either a wooden rest or simple metal pin for the thumb to support. The clarinet has gotten much heavier over time, and now our thumb is asked to do something it was never designed to do.
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