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Re: Articulating with Clarion B and C#

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-03-04 21:49

pewd wrote:

>
> Check your reed placement - make sure the reed isn't too low on
> the mouthpiece - you want it a hair's width (a thin hair!)
> above the top of the mouthpiece. Place the reed too low and
> clean articulation is difficult.
>

I don't have an argument with anything that's been said so far except part of the above. True, if the reed is too low it will close more easily and make articulation balky. But "a hair's width ... above the top of the mouthpiece" is for me, taken literally, too high. Not that Paul is necessarily wrong, but that his prescription isn't necessarily the only right possibility.

I actually line my reeds up "a hair's width" *below* the mouthpiece tip. The reed certainly needs to overlap most of the tip rail. But I find the reeds that I use sound muffled if they extend even slightly beyond the mouthpiece. This is dependent, though, on the individual reed's resistance. The result of lowering the reed on the curve is that the reed's resistance is less as the lip contacts it at a thinner point in its taper.

To be sure, the long notes ARE a little more resistant than the short tube notes at the throat, and you notice that in particular when you move up or down over the break. *If all is mechanically well with the clarinet,* you have to resist a tendency to "tongue" more heavily in an effort to overcome the additional resistance, which can also cause your jaw to move with each release (thinking in terms of the stop-release process Paul Aviles described earlier). Try checking yourself by articulating a higher note that you don't have trouble with - say, F5 (top line of the treble staff). Then go down by half steps and try to feel if anything in your approach changes.

Karl

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