 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2014-05-06 01:20
I watched a youtube video which involved Joe Allard and his teaching concepts. At one point Joe made mention of Gaston Hamelin and I believe it was in reference to a lower lip formation when playing. Rather than trying to apply pressure from the sides as in a circular embouchure, the bottom lip acted as a shelf for the reed to vibrate on. Was this a common approach of many teachers and performers in this era?
The other point that Joe touched on was moving the mouthpiece in and out of the mouth for dynamics. Loud required more mouthpiece and soft was less. There was a rolling technique that I’ve seen demonstrated for this purpose. Do you know if this was also a technique of many other clarinetists at the time? This might be a subtle technique but in the video Joe made it quite exaggerated.
Does anyone know whether Gaston Hamelin implemented these techniques?
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: tylerleecutts
Date: 2014-05-06 08:01
I don't know about Hamelin, but my old teacher Theodore DeCorso at the University of Tampa used some of these techniques while teaching and playing. He studied with Allard.
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Author: Wes
Date: 2014-05-06 11:18
Perhaps I don't understand, but I thought that is the way many people today use the lower lip. Lurie said to smile just a little when playing the very high notes on the instrument.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-05-06 16:08
This seem to contravene most of what I know. I want to investigate the "flat" reed business further.
...........Paul Aviles
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2014-05-07 01:12
I don't know much about Hamelin, but perhaps I can say a little about Allard's embouchure concepts. Everything I know about him comes from articles about him, the YouTube videos Joe Allard-The Master Speaks, and Harvey Pittel's YouTube videos.
As one who also plays sax (although not as well as clarinet), I often consult Larry Teal's The Art of Saxophone Playing. Teal taught the circular/drawstring embouchure, which remains popular today. Allard was critical of this approach because he didn't think the sides of the reed were able to vibrate properly. He may have also felt that pulling in the sides of the mouth (the circle embouchure) contributed to tension in the corners of the embouchure. When there's tension in the corners, there's also tension in the throat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvvilCbPjfQ
When playing sax, I've found that I've slowly moved from the Teal to the Allard approach. There's something to be said for it.
Many of the great clarinet teachers of the past taught the pulled-back smile embouchure (which involves the bottom lip acting as a shelf). That's the embouchure described in Keith Stein's The Art of Clarinet Playing. It's interesting that one of Stein's most devoted students, David Pino, describes a very different approach (more circular) in his book, The Clarinet and Clarinet Playing.
I'm not sure if Allard recommended the "big-smile" clarinet embouchure or not.
For me, the best clarinet embouchure is a hybrid one, a cross between the pulled back and circular approaches.
For more about Allard, you might enjoy reading this:
http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=mus_fac_pub
Post Edited (2014-05-07 01:14)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-05-07 01:51
Lots of great stuff in this article...MANY, MANY THANKS !!!
I agree wholeheartedly with the tongue position, air flow, and even the idea of being able to move from "register to register" without the "octave key" as good training.
The flat lower lip, and or passive lip is still dumbfounding to me. I do NOT (nor do any of my "fountainheads") have problems with the lower register despite the "drawstring" approach to the embouchure. Perhaps whether you bring the clarinet in closer to you (automatically brings the reed more in contact with the front of you lower teeth.....flatter) makes a difference. But I need to work out how you can "flatten" without having leaking corners, or make things "passive" while still providing a firm platform on which the reed sits.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: DougR
Date: 2014-05-07 05:11
I study with a guy who studied with Joe, and his take on the Pittel vids is that they're worth watching, for both clarinet and sax, although Mr. Pittel departs from "Joe" from time to time in minor ways, as befits an academic sax player who's spent his entire life studying the instrument and perhaps has some refinements and nuance of his own to add.
There was an exercise Joe used to do with students that involved playing the mouthpiece with 2 reeds on either side of the mouthpiece (one per side); the physical presence of the reeds was to discourage the "drawstring" approach, and give the student a physical reminder to keep the lower lip flat, but not tense. You can achieve a similar effect with your two forefingers--balance the bottom end of the horn between your knees to free up your hands, and press your forefinger tips on the lower lip, on either side of the mouthpiece. Play a tone, then pull your forefingers out of your embouchure. If your embouchure reverts to a "drawstring" then your mouth corners need to be a bit more drawn back (but NOT the "big smile" or the severely pointed chin, which a lot of teachers have favored). the corners of the mouth are pulled back a BIT, but the amount of tension in the lower lip is like a pat of melted butter, i.e. not much at all.
(Disclaimer, this is not Joe Allard Gospel Hour, just me trying to approximate what I THINK I heard my teacher say. You know the old game of 'Telephone;' hopefully I'm not spreading misinterpretation here. And I'm not sure, if you're comfortable playing drawstring and don't notice an improvement trying something else, whether it's worth getting into a whole Ecumenical Council debate about it.)
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2014-05-07 06:48
I'm interested in where these techniques came from. If some of Joe Allard's ideas came from Hamelin, then Rosario Mazzeo and Ralph McLane should have been introduced to these ideas as students of Hamelin.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2014-05-08 14:56
Joe's told me that the all time most impressive thing he had ever heard was Stan Drucker's performance of Boulez "Domains" at a Clarinet Conference (Toronto).
Mike Getzin had the recording as the audio guy at the Festival.
The good old days when Conference recordings were available.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2014-05-08 18:30
The interviewer, Ira Jay Weinstein did a good job in my estimation. It provides viewers a glimpse into some of the techniques Joe used. I met Joe only once and during a long lesson was taken by his repertoire of teaching tools. He had lots of exercises which appeared to be of his own invention. As it turns out some of these came from Hamelin. Given what I have gleaned about Mazzeo(another Hamelin student) it would seem Gaston cultivated a breed of students who were very creative in their thinking.
Freelance woodwind performer
Post Edited (2014-05-08 18:31)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-05-10 01:15
In understanding Allard's embouchure recommendations, we should pay close attention to one detail in Cipolla's article ("Pedagogy of Master Clarinet and Saxophone Teacher, Joe Allard: A Panel Discussion)--namely, that from an early age, Allard wore dentures!
Cippola says: "He [Allard] emphasized playing with very little top teeth and top lip pressure on the mouthpiece. This is because he had dentures due to a child hood accident. And thus he learned to play with very little embouchure pressure and superb air control."
Most of us did not grow up wearing dentures. Learning to play the clarinet with dentures would tend to give one a different perspective on the whole question of embouchure and tone production. It is remarkable that Allard reached such high levels of professional performance on both clarinet and saxophone burdened by what many would consider a "handicap." Makes me want to practice more and complain less.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2014-05-10 06:42
Seabreeze, thanks for drawing our attention to this article. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=mus_fac_pub
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