 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-02-08 03:14
Ok, this isn't really about the Kangaroo leather ligature....... for the most part. I should really entitle this "The decoupling of the ligature from the reed, mouthpiece system."
Lately I have FULLY embraced the idea of just placing the ligature over the reed and just ever so slightly turning the tightening device until you just barely feel it begin to grab (and not even that much !!!). Maybe I should restate a story I told some time ago about a saxophone playing colleague who was doing a solo and made a slightly careless motion away from the mouthpiece which bumped the reed with his lip. The reed actually SPUN some 45 degrees off the center line of the mouthpiece. After the performance I asked about this and he stated nonchalantly that he always leaves the ligature as loose as possible so the reed can vibrate freely. Needless to say he always got a huge sound on his axe.
So in applying this of late to my entire collection of ligatures I've found that there still is some affect on the sound based on material and design but the results can be quite different than what you get really cranking down on the reed. Some of the soft designs that got relegated to the back of the drawer turned out to be some of the better ones in this experiment.
Fast forward to the Kangaroo. Now, the original Rovners used to be made of leather (just a basic solid pouch design ...... the now named Rovner Dark). Another colleague of mine was rather proud of her original old Rovner that she claimed sounded much better than those current ones of synthetic material. So in an attempt to get a basic, thin pouch of leather (not that easy these days folks) I ordered a black Kangaroo leather ligature from Lomax. To my great delight there was the sort of POP and response that I heretofore had only experienced with ligatures that had Bonade style inserts. I don't necessarily say this particular ligature is amazing in and of itself, but I do say that experimenting with the tightness (or rather looseness) of you ligature whatever it may be, could be the easiest and cheapest way to experiment with your sound.
..........................Paul Aviles
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Author: zhao.paul
Date: 2013-02-28 16:06
How is the Lomax Kangaroo leather ligature compare to other leather ligature such as Vandoren leather ligature?
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Author: Joe Bloke
Date: 2013-02-28 18:41
"Lately I have FULLY embraced the idea of just placing the ligature over the reed and just ever so slightly turning the tightening device until you just barely feel it begin to grab (and not even that much !!!)."
Absolutely! After trying almost all of the brands and configurations, I started making my own ligatures because the ones I'd buy were, essentially, buzz kill to vibration. I had a hard time with the tension screws on the commercial products because, they tended to lack precise adjustment capability; tending to be either too tight or too loose.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-02-28 20:04
The Lomax leather ligature is just a pouch design (no frills) similar to the original Rovner.
Where it diverges is that the leather is tough at a thinner thickness so there is less material. I am not sure if it is this spartan structure or the leather itself that imparts a quick response to reeds. Even tightened down quite a bit, there is much more life to the sound than what I get out of the Vandoren Leather (previously loved the metal insert in the Vandoren but now I am converted to the "harder" or "smoother" leather insert).
As for the "practical" side of the house, the Lomax by nature of the design is easy to tighten for the sake of removing the mouthpieces for swabbing. Other ligatures that hold up well for me with regard to response are the tried and true string ligature (that you tie on yourself) and the Spriggs Floating Rail but it is better to manipulate these off the horn along with the barrel to avoid having the reed fall to the floor.
..................Paul Aviles
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