 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Fresh Soren
Date: 2014-11-30 08:43
Hello guys. So I joined clarinet choir and the senior Bb clarinet players (i'm a freshman) have a rich, complex, and beautiful sound on their clarinets. I asked the conductor how do they achieve this complex sound, she then told me that it's all in the embouchure, she also told me how to make the correct embouchure. I've been trying to achieve this rich sound however I never seem to get a sound as good as the seniors do. Do I need to do long tones? Is my tongue not correct? Mouthpiece? Does this take months of practice or does it just happen?
I play on a wood clarinet with a rubber mouthpiece (Intermediate level).
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2014-11-30 09:54
The short answer is yes, it takes months (actually years) of practice, and long tones are essential. That said, PROGRESS should come fairly quickly in the beginning (you should notice a difference in a week or two) if you've had the right instruction and are using appropriate equipment. It's MASTERY that takes a long time. One of the quickest ways to progress is by regularly playing with musicians who are more advanced than you - it sounds like you have that going for you!
Without getting into a long reply at the moment, tongue position is very important. The tongue should be raised in the back. You can get a sense of this by saying the word "key" and then turning this into a hiss. You are looking for fast air, not the slow warm air that many other wind instruments use.
Anders
Post Edited (2014-11-30 09:57)
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Author: nbclarinet
Date: 2014-11-30 10:34
I second what the above poster has suggested. The tongue position is probably the change that will give students the most substantial improvement in their tone. Start with "keeey" as suggested above and then combine this with "eeeeww" to give a good position for the lips in addition to the raised tongue. Since this is Sometimes difficult to understand via text, check out Tom Ridenours book which has an exeoptional explanation as well as diagrams to accompany.
Cheers
NB
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2014-11-30 15:35
Ridenour's book is great, and very highly recommended.
Here's a video that might be helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4aT5Uz6aoc
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2014-11-30 16:23
Besides, you hear yourself differently than you hear others, so it's tough to compare. If you have the possibility, record yourself from time to time.
--
Ben
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-12-01 00:26
For me, the epiphany was the correct use of AIR and not (so much) the embouchure.
And if you really think about it, the embouchure is merely a 'platform' onto or into which you place the reed/mouthpiece. AIR is what produces the sound and carries the sound forward (or doesn't).
The MAIN part of air is to ensure that you have a very focused, and swift moving stream of air. I am becoming fond of saying of late that if you could put a pressure gauge (ala a tire pressure gauge) into your mouth, there would be a minimum floor of pressure needed to produce even the softest pianissimo with an appropriate amount of resonance (and again, if you're really honest with yourself the ingredient that is most likely missing is RESONANCE).
Here's what ya do:
Press the air actively from your core using your abdominal muscles (and to some extent the intercostal muscles located between your ribs........I have become quite acquainted with this just recently do to two broken ribs - VERY painful to even draw IN a breath!).
Now make sure NOTHING impedes the progress of this "actively excited air" such as the "AHHHHH" posture of your tongue (another well intentioned road block). "AHHHHH" places the back of your tongue down into the top of your throat which actually BLOCKS the free flow of air. Secondly and almost just as negatively the "AHHHHH" posture also causes more diffuse air in the oral cavity. So what you want is to leave your tongue in a natural position, or think "EEEEEE" sound or even position the tongue as if you were impersonating a hissing cat.
Finally and just as important as the two points above is to tongue using the very tip of the tongue to the very tip of the reed. We ALL know that when NOT on the reed, the tongue should sit as close as possible to the reed, this (in the tip-to-tip posture) focuses the air column at the very point where it is needed the most - the tip of the mouthpiece/reed system where the sound is actually initiated (not in the mouth as it is for singers).
As a check on whether you are doing things correctly, see if you can feel the clarinet vibrating with great authority under your fingers (in all registers at all volumes). This is the "acid test" to ensure you are producing a resonant, projecting sound.
...................Paul Aviles
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Author: Slowoldman
Date: 2014-12-03 23:24
I agree emphatically with Paul about the importance of proper air (or "breath support"). And I've found it's one thing to talk about it and describe it, but it's more important to have a teacher who can show you exactly what it means, and help you achieve it. (And sit there and make you do it right over-and-over--Something nobody did when I was younger and learning to play.)
With better air, the embouchure to at least some degree takes care of itself, or at least is easier to achieve.
Steve
Amateur musician, retired physician
Delaware Valley Wind Symphony, clarinet 1
Bucks County Symphony Orchestra, clarinet 2 (sub)
Post Edited (2014-12-03 23:25)
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2014-12-04 03:33
I don't mean to poke fun at the wize comments about air discussed above.
I do though mean to poke harmless fun at we clarinetists, myself included, by reminding you that it has to be "good" air. (smile/wink)
http://youtu.be/RVBod2kPAnc?t=1m47s
..."good" air in this context being the nebulous stuff of jokes, like the speakers in the cult favorite movie Spinal Tap being unique in that they go up to "eleven," (as if all speakers produced the same sound characteristics at each number of the volume dial.)
REAL good air, and what that means in the clarinet world, I suspect Mr. Aviles already covered well.
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Author: katiemules1
Date: 2014-12-04 21:18
In rehearsing, play long tones with a tuner and increase and decrease volume. This will teach you control and consistent tone. Also remember to keep your chin flat, your corners tucked in, and your air strong and constant.
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Author: Claudia Zornow
Date: 2014-12-04 22:53
Larry Guy's book "Embouchure Building for Clarinetists" is very good too.
Claudia in Cupertino
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2014-12-05 08:07
Long tones are basically a tool to help you concentrate on the embouchure and air flow without worrying about anything else (no changing notes, no tonguing patterns - just air and embouchure)
When forming an embouchure, I use a very relaxed, but stable embouchure. The muscles in your mouth and lips should NOT be taxed from working hard. The sound comes from the air, not any "squeezing".
To form an embouchure, I like to play an open "G" at a forte. Think of your lips as a rubber o-ring. Their function is simply to keep enough pressure around and on the reed to keep the air from leaking out and make sure all the air goes through the mouthpiece.
If an open G sounds, put in a hair more mouthpiece so now your bottom lip is a little further down the reed. If an open G sounds, put in more and repeat. When you get to the point where it's a loud squeak, you've gone one "click" to far and if you back SLIGHTLY out, you should have enough mouthpiece to essentially maximize the vibration of the reed with the air (this is often right about the point where the curve of the mouthpiece joins te flat underside of the reed).
So for my long tones, I put the optimum amount of mouthpiece in, keep the back of my tongue high and the tongue a hair away from the tip of the reed. I try to imagine that I'm trying to make the air stay in a stream, flow down the top of my tongue, and connect right to the reed from the tip of my tongue.
Well, that's what works for me to get the sound I want and good control over the sound and different registers (controlling over and undertones).
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
Post Edited (2014-12-05 08:09)
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2014-12-06 02:04
sfalexi wrote:
> Think of your lips as a rubber o-ring. Their function is simply
> to keep enough pressure around and on the reed to keep the air
> from leaking out and make sure all the air goes through the
> mouthpiece.
That's a classic saxophone embouchure. I'm curious about what kind of set up you might be using that makes that effective. Are you going more for a jazz concept? The original poster is likely looking for something different from that, judging from the context of his post.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2014-12-06 04:42
nellsonic wrote:
> sfalexi wrote:
>
>
> > Think of your lips as a rubber o-ring. Their function is
> simply
> > to keep enough pressure around and on the reed to keep the
> air
> > from leaking out and make sure all the air goes through the
> > mouthpiece.
>
> That's a classic saxophone embouchure. I'm curious about what
> kind of set up you might be using that makes that effective.
> Are you going more for a jazz concept? The original poster is
> likely looking for something different from that, judging from
> the context of his post.
I'm not going for a jazz concept. I adopted a very VERY light embouchure when I heard a few years back that Mark Nuccio uses slightly lighter reeds than what might be expected on his setup to allow for variations of tone color. I started experimenting with lighter reeds in order to see how they work. I found that you can use a lighter reed on pretty much any mouthpiece as long as the embouchure pressure was VERY light (I used double lip in practice sessions a lot to ensure I wasn't biting at all) So while I was playing an M15 at the time, I was using a lighter reed than what my instructor was using (he was using 4.5, myself 3.5)
After various tweaks and experiments, I am currently, and have been for a few years, playing a more open mouthpiece (Walter Grabner K14). He states on his website it's for jazz and klezmer, but I use it for everything (playing classical, marches, chamber music, and yes, playing in a jazzy and klezmer style). I personally love the variety of sounds a more open mouthpiece gives me (I sound closer to Ricardo Morales than ever before.....still not LIKE him, but closer at least!).
Earlier this year (around March?), a sax player in my band told me that to get a better sound out of the alto I should just form a circle with my lips. Think of an "oooooo" sound, and just seal off the air. Instantly my sax playing was much more resonant.
So I took my already light embouchure and tried the same embouchure as sax, and it worked just as well, if not better, and is less tiring. So I've been sticking with that for about 8 months and I'm loving it.
In order to keep the pitch constant and to keep from tiring, I used to have to set my embouchure, set the pressure I was going to use, and keep it constant while playing, which required building up a strong, firm embouchure muscles that would eventually tire. Now I use virtually no pressure and I give the reed constant and consistent freedom to vibrate. And as lot as I don't START to firm up, and I keep a good airstream, it won't change pitch. And I feel it works VERY well. I can and have played for hours (literally, my brain and fingers will fry before my embouchure), keep a locked in pitch, and still have the ability to drop my jaw even more, or pinch a little to raise the pitch to tune a little up or down.
To each their own, but this works for me, and I haven't had any complaints about sound. Technique a few here and there, but sound has been good and I'm blending well with other clarinet players, saxes, french horns and flutes.
Blending with Trumpets? Well that's a whole 'nother thread.......
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2014-12-08 14:35
Thanks for the interesting and detailed reply, Alexi. One should note that the original poster is presumably a high school student, and that yours is not the standard view of how an embouchure on the clarinet works. What you do probably works for you as a result of developing a more traditional embouchure first.
A younger player is not likely to get the same results. I could be wrong, but there is a substantial and accepted body of knowledge on this topic that has been developed and shouldn't be ignored. Generally speaking, a fair amount of pressure from the embouchure muscles (NOT biting with the jaw) is necessary to successfully control the reed for the kind of sound the student described wanting to attain.
Like you, I am an advocate of the double lip approach as a tool in embouchure development, and for some students playing double lip all the time is a great advantage. It's something I've been working with lately as a way to further develop my own playing.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-12-08 17:00
There is a "substantial and accepted body of knowledge on this topic" that is spoon fed to students on the belief that it is the only way to start a student. Then you have a student that starts off with a technique that has to be totally changed in college (if it is wrong, that is).
I have at least one rank beginner who has a WONDERFUL, MATURE sound already. And I have some students that started with another teacher only a year ago and are still having problems understanding a better way to go.
Why not start off students correctly from the beginning? There is NO requirement to use "substantial pressure" from the embouchure muscles. On the contrary, you use a subtle, ever changing pressure while the muscles of the embouchure constantly work together isometrically.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2014-12-08 18:26
Hi Paul. I don't think we actually disagree, although perhaps we do. I didn't say "substantial pressure", I said a "fair amount of pressure" which in this context just means something more than what Alexi was describing.
It doesn't mean heavy or indiscriminate. Every student is different, and there will naturally be some minor variation in thought on this depending on teacher lineage, equipment preferences, etc.
I really don't see how embracing the concept of a certain amount of oblique pressure in a clarinet embouchure is controversial or implies that I might be a bad teacher.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-12-08 20:07
Fresh Soren wrote:
> I asked the conductor how
> do they achieve this complex sound, she then told me that it's
> all in the embouchure, she also told me how to make the correct
> embouchure.
nellsonic wrote:
> ... there is a substantial and accepted body of
> knowledge on this topic that has been developed and shouldn't
> be ignored.
Trouble is, the "accepted" knowledge has changed and will very likely change again. When I began to pay, I was taught to pull the corners of my mouth back into a "smile" and stretch my lower lip tightly over my bottom teeth. This isn't the "accepted wisdom" today.
The notion of using limited, judicious (no more than needed/as little as possible) pressure against/around the reed is in any case not a direct determinant of any single approach to forming an embouchure. In the end, the result matters, not so much the external appearance of anything facial. In fact, a great deal of concern and attention end up being wasted on what a student's "embouchure" looks like from the outside, when the real issues have to do with what's going on inside where the teacher can't see and the student can only feel.
To bring this back somewhat to the original question, I would suggest to David that you concentrate less on where your tongue is and what your embouchure looks like and listen honestly to your own sound. Is it clear or diffuse? Do notes speak freely or do they balk or the tone feel constricted? Can you play soft, loud and get from one to the other smoothly or does it feel like your dynamic range is restricted to one end or the other? Next, consider if you are doing anything with your jaw, lips or tongue to limit the reed's vibration. Also consider whether the seniors are simply better judges of reeds than you are - do you play on vibrant reeds or take reeds out of the box as they come? Is your equipment *system* - reed, mouthpiece, instrument - in good mechanical condition? Leak-free clarinet, undamaged mouthpiece rails, corks all functioning correctly, reed capable of vibrating freely? A resonant tone comes from efficient use of air coupled with non-rigid tissues inside the mouth and the minimal tension needed, or maybe instead, the maximal avoidance of unproductive tension everywhere else.
Karl
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Author: TomS
Date: 2014-12-08 23:27
I can scrunch my embouchure around considerably with little change in tone. As others have posted, it's mostly about your air delivery system and oral cavity shape, which is highly dependent of the position of the tongue.
But, embouchure is important ... and I have gone from a "jaw bite" (50 years ago) to a "drawstring". Once your clarinet hardware is good and YOUR body's hardware is good, properly adjusted and set, only small amounts of embouchure finesse is required to play most things.
On brass instruments, what your lips are doing is much more important.
Tom
Post Edited (2014-12-08 23:39)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-12-09 07:46
Gosh no "nellsonic," I never would say YOU are a bad teacher, just that they way I interpreted the description lends me to say that that particular method is 'not so good.'
Keep in mind producing the sound on clarinet is a balance between the air (with that component being MOST important by far) and the amount of 'control' we impose around the mouthpiece/reed system. For example, you would be exerting more embouchure control on the same note in the same register if you were playing a fortississimo as opposed to a mezzo piano. But if you used the embouchure 'control' of that fortississimo on the mezzo piano, the sound you'd get would be whiny and kazoo-like.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2014-12-09 11:19
Thanks, Paul. I fully agree with most everything you wrote in your last post. I think the confusion might that I was speaking of a principle, not a method. I almost never use the word 'pressure' when speaking to a student. It only came up here because it was mentioned previously in the thread.
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Author: Fresh Soren
Date: 2014-12-25 20:47
Hey guys sorry for all the confusion. You all helped me. I think the real solution is hard work, and I'm not going any where till I try more.
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Author: JonTheReeds
Date: 2014-12-30 18:47
Karl, you said:
<Trouble is, the "accepted" knowledge has changed and will very likely change again. When I began to pay, I was taught to pull the corners of my mouth back into a "smile" and stretch my lower lip tightly over my bottom teeth. This isn't the "accepted wisdom" today.
I was just wondering what today's technique is, and why it has changed since you began to play? Do you use the 'smile' technique or the 'modern' technique?
--------------------------------------
The older I get, the better I was
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-12-30 19:04
I don't use the "smile." I don't know where to categorize what I do. I guess I use a "modern" American approach (i.e. lips pulled in toward the mouthpiece to form a seal) to the extent that one exists. I play double lip and hold both lips back against my teeth. It isn't that I follow any sort of convention in doing it. I don't really think much about anything except whether or not the sound and articulation are clear. I can't even say that I always form my embouchure the same way - I adapt to the reed, to prevailing intonation around me and the timbral needs of the music.
Karl
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2014-12-30 22:39
To answer JonTheReed's question: When I started a little over 4 years ago in my middle school band, I wasn't really taught embouchure formation, which proved to be a problem later on when I started taking private lessons.
What I was eventually taught to do is what kdk describes (except not double-lip) - pull a portion of your lower lip over your bottom teeth and bring in the corners of your mouth to form a seal, like you're saying the letter O. I've heard it described as a drawstring embouchure.
There are variations of this incorporating a little bit of smiling, and some people still smile. I have a friend who uses the smile embouchure and he's a very good clarinetist, but he gets a very noticeable "hiss" and sometimes looks strained while he's playing, likely because a lot of air escapes the corners of his mouth. I tried the smile embouchure once and had the same experience - plus the thinner lip approach seemed to hurt my lip quite a bit. I suppose if you built up the corners of your mouth enough that little to no air escaped, the smile embouchure wouldn't be an issue.
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