 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: CarlT
Date: 2015-03-29 23:27
I really hesitate to even bring this up, but I can't seem to find an answer from my searches here.
I'm an intermediate player with an R13 and use #3 Legere Signature or Vandy #3 V12 reeds.
I seem to get the best tone with a Vandoren M13 Lyre (series 13), or a Vandy M15 (again 13 series); however, I'm almost always flat on E4 and F4. I seem to have read recently that this is not untypical for the 13 series MPs.
My question is if I bought the same MPs above in a non-series 13, would that help the problem?
Are the "non-13 Series" MPs tuned to 442? If so, that might correct the problem with E4 and F4, but cause sharpness in other notes, right?
I don't have a problem with the clarion register being flat at all, so I'm wondering if it might have to do with my R13 instead of the Vandy MPs?
Any help will be appreciated.
CarlT
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-03-30 00:08
Well, the sharper (I don't want to say there is a pitch designation for a mouthpiece.....there is NOT) mouthpiece will help bring the short tube notes back in line. There is a chance that you are using your embouchure (or dare I say that you are biting) mostly to 'come UP to pitch.' This is an "easy out" as far as tuning goes because quite frankly it is "easy" and we hear flat easier than sharp.
I recommend going the sharper mouthpiece route and also getting used to having pitch be more in the "center" of your embouchure control. This allows much greater flexibility to the control of your playing and is well worth the effort.
Oh, and on Buffets (actually many Boehm horns) the first space "F" can ride low particularly when playing rather loud. To offset this effect you can engage the lowest sidekey.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: nbclarinet
Date: 2015-03-30 01:25
I also personally really like the M15....FWIW. When i was trying them out, I actually prefered the non 13 series version. For some reason it responded slightly better for me, and it was definitely more in tune on my horn which is an R13.
If you like the M15 or M13 it might be a worthwhile idea to try the non 13 series.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-03-30 06:50
If E4 and F4 are flat enough to be unmanageable, you have basically 3 options: use a sharper mouthpiece, use a shorter barrel or have tone holes undercut a little to bring the two notes up.
A sharper mouthpiece will bring the throat notes up more than the longest notes, but it will bring the pitch of the entire clarinet up somewhat. So, it makes a difference where the rest of the clarinet now tunes.
A shorter barrel will do essentially the same thing as the sharper mouthpiece for the same reason. Both create an air column of slightly less volume (the Series 13s have a deeper baffle; the shorter barrel is, well, shorter).
Raising the pitch of the two notes by altering the first open tone holes under the fingerings for E4 and F4 (probably the first and second LH tone holes) will also raise B5 and C6. If those are now dead on, you might be able to compromise - it's probably easier to lower the clarion notes a little than it is to raise the throat notes on the fly. If (as is often the case with Boehm clarinets) B5 and C6 are already sharp, they may become unmanageable if you bring E4 and F4 up and you'll have traded one problem for another.
If you really like the Series 13s you're using, you might try a shorter barrel first. Many players, like nbclarinet, prefer the Traditional Vandorens, but they play a little differently and sound slightly different, so pitch isn't all you change between the two series. OTOH, you may like one of the Traditionals better once you try it. You really can only work this out by trial and error.
As I've mentioned several times in recent threads about the Series 13s, this flatness in the throat area was the reason I left them after several months soon after they came out. The ironic thing is that Don Montenaro, who I understand was heavily involved in developing the original Series 13 mouthpieces (M13, M13 Lyre), was (is) as far as I know a staunch R13 advocate. The mouthpieces must, I think, have been prototyped using an R13. So it puzzles me that they seem to cause so many people pitch problems on R13s in the specific area of the throat notes and, particularly, E4 and F4.
Karl
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-03-30 09:27
An expert clarinet tuner can raise the E4 and F4 by carefully undercutting the proper tone holes without raising the clarion B and C. It is not rocket science. The top ends of the tone holes are not to be enlarged.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-03-30 12:40
I have in the past, and still disagree with the notion that barrel length and mouthpiece tuning are equivalent. They are not. The mouthpiece GENERATES the nascent tone and pitch of the instrument, so its affect on what happens next has a greater affect than the barrel which ONLY lengthens the tube.
The most obvious example of the preeminence of the mouthpiece is the spectacular mismatching of acoustics that can happen when a mouthpiece designed for a specific bore configuration is put atop a clarinet with a different bore specification. An example is a Boosey 1010 mouthpiece placed atop a standard French clarinet (or the other way around). I am also convinced the same is true with mouthpieces specific to German bore clarinets vs. French but the difference IS more subtle and some folks do that anyway.
I get the impression that most of us would question wether we are using the right barrel for our "A" clarinet before asking ourselves if its ok to use a mouthpiece with a lower generating starting tone. I am bumfuzled by that.
................Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-03-30 16:59
Paul Aviles wrote:
> I have in the past, and still disagree with the notion that
> barrel length and mouthpiece tuning are equivalent. They are
> not. The mouthpiece GENERATES the nascent tone and pitch of
> the instrument, so its affect on what happens next has a
> greater affect than the barrel which ONLY lengthens the tube.
>
The reed generates the tone. The mouthpiece is the topmost area in which the air column vibrates. It's still a vibrating air column that produces a pitch based on the volume of air it comprises. Might it affect the throat notes more than a barrel? Yes, it might. It depends on the difference in volume between the sharper mouthpiece and the flatter one, which could well be greater than the extra volume produced by a millimeter more of barrel length. A change in mouthpiece baffle/chamber/bore and a change in barrel length/bore will affect the pitch in the same way. Your mileage will differ depending on the actual dimensions involved.
If I really love a mouthpiece (or just don't want to adjust to a new one), I will try another approach to pitch correction before I give up on the mouthpiece.
>
> The most obvious example of the preeminence of the mouthpiece
> is the spectacular mismatching of acoustics that can happen
> when a mouthpiece designed for a specific bore configuration is
> put atop a clarinet with a different bore specification. An
> example is a Boosey 1010 mouthpiece placed atop a standard
> French clarinet (or the other way around). I am also convinced
> the same is true with mouthpieces specific to German bore
> clarinets vs. French but the difference IS more subtle and some
> folks do that anyway.
I'd be curious whether players who have played or currently play Centered-tones or Selmer Series 9s (both, I think "large bore" instruments) find using current French-style mouthpieces as difficult as players have using them with 1010s. I honestly don't know, but I can't count the number of references I've read here to the B&H clarinets' incompatibility with Vandoren and other modern French mouthpieces, while I really don't remember the same volume of comment - if any - about other large-bore clarinets. Could the incompatibility be in some other parameter?
>
>
> I get the impression that most of us would question wether we
> are using the right barrel for our "A" clarinet before asking
> ourselves if its ok to use a mouthpiece with a lower generating
> starting tone. I am bumfuzled by that.
>
I don't understand this. Certainly those of us who use separate barrels for A and Bb try to choose the "right" (or at least a "good" barrel) for each, without regard to the mouthpiece. If your point is that we should in theory be using different mouthpieces, you're probably right, and with increased use of synthetic reeds, that may one day be considered a practical way to set up an A clarinet. Some players use separate C clarinet mouthpieces and some use their all-purpose soprano mouthpiece for all 3. That's a compromise that most (not all, I'm sure) players have always been willing to make for convenience. Or did I misunderstand what your were getting at here?
Karl
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2015-03-30 17:42
I have in my collection (or rather accumulation, I never set out to collect them) a couple of 1010's and a Series 9. The 1010's just will not behave without either a special 1010 mouthpiece from B & H, a Woodwind Steel-Ebonite that I modified to work on the 1010 or a very nice Pillinger 1010 mouthpiece. With any of those they tune surprisingly well. With a normal French mouthpiece they sound good but the tuning is all over the place. The Series 9 seems to work with pretty much anything I put on it, although the Woodwind S/E works particularly well on it.
"I'd be curious whether players who have played or currently play Centered-tones or Selmer Series 9s (both, I think "large bore" instruments) find using current French-style mouthpieces as difficult as players have using them with 1010s. I honestly don't know, but I can't count the number of references I've read here to the B&H clarinets' incompatibility with Vandoren and other modern French mouthpieces, while I really don't remember the same volume of comment - if any - about other large-bore clarinets. Could the incompatibility be in some other parameter?"
Tony F.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-03-30 18:16
My point is that we put the appropriate amount of consideration of tuning and bore matching when it comes to the barrel (I hope). But then when we think we can have a "dark" tone or an appropriate pitch with a certain (marketed as such) mouthpiece we are then willing to throw those compatibility queries out the window.
How many younger player have we heard with horribly flat throat notes (that are quite possibly beyond correction)?
I just don't like the idea of disadvantaging a large swath of players who are not yet able to make the compromises necessary for those mouthpieces to work.
We just stated in another current thread about the pitch of certain notes being correctable but with the understanding that you create OTHER problems that equate to other accommodations. The same is true with mouthpieces. I just feel the flatter mouthpieces are HARDER to accommodate in the long run (or cause worse side effects such as..........'BITING').
................Paul Aviles
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-03-30 21:33
I'd just like to point out that to some extent, the shorter barrel route can somewhat (but by no means completely) be compensated for in sharper right hand notes that result, by slightly increasing the distance between the upper and lower joints of the instrument.
Undercutting sounds like a possibility too, but I'm hesitant about adjusting a clarinet for a mouthpiece. To me, that's a little like adjusting a mouthpiece for a reed, which, baring perhaps buying Legere reed specific mouthpieces, is probably not a good idea.
You may want to look at Tom Ridenour's video on when and why we undercut tone holes, and how, when done correctly at least, it does not affect the "other note" played with the same fingering, only with, or absent of the register key.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSf2ng2ZEq8
Undercutting, IMHO, is something you have done by those who know what their doing. In the same way I wouldn't bring my car to a quick oil change place for transmission work, and rather seek out transmission specific mechanics, undercutting is normally not something you turf out to a repair tech who doesn't do it [frequently].
Please appreciate that all solutions presented here have limitations, are are not necessarily mutually exclusive with one another. You could change mouthpieces and barrels, although I would strongly suggest you change only one thing at a time.
If it was said I missed it. Just how flat (in terms of accoustical cents) are your left finger E and F. Is the F# "next door" flat too? Has about the F# play as if you are playing an F, only with the addition of the two lower side trill keys?
Undercutting done wrong it can have harmful and near permanent affects on intonation.
Post Edited (2015-03-30 21:40)
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Author: Ed
Date: 2015-03-30 23:03
I would not consider undercutting tone holes. I would try some slightly harder reeds to see if that helps at all. Work with a teacher who can identify problems with embouchure or other issues. If you have the same problem with different mouthpieces, you can try other mouthpieces and also have others see if they have the same results on your instrument. You want to narrow down where the problem is.
Undercutting or modifying the instrument should only be something to consider if it were somehow determined that the instrument was not manufactured correctly. There are times that players ruin an instrument because of a fundamental problem that they have in playing and address the instrument rather than the underlying problem.
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Author: CarlT
Date: 2015-03-31 00:51
Thanks a lot, fellows, for your thoughtful advice.
I failed to mention that I already use a 65 mm Moennig barrel instead of the 66. I would've thought that would have taken care, at least to a degree, of the problem, but it didn't to the extent that I thought it should.
I might now try a 64 mm barrel, or I might try a non 13-series mp, or both...probably I should try the latter first.
At any rate, I think Karl has it right...it's going to be a trial and error thing, and at best, it may be somewhat of a compromise. I just hate that I'm always flat at the E and F throat notes, while any of the higher notes are right in tune.
Oh, I didn't mention that low E and Low F are always flat, but I think that's pretty much a given anyway, and I realize that doesn't matter as much as the E4 and F4 from what I've heard.
CarlT
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Author: Ed
Date: 2015-03-31 02:05
The flat throat tones are often a problem with the 13 series. You can find lots of posts on the BB about it. I have known some players who've had the mouthpiece shortened by about a mm with good results.
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