 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-05 01:11
Q: What can the clarinet player do, using his embouchure, throat, and wind, to help make notes like ![[Bb4]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/bb4.gif) sound better.
Scope: * barrel changes: in,
* fingerings, including resonance and alternate fingerings: out, register pipe,
cleaning: out
(I don't mean to sound dictatoral. That others may learn from a more broaden scope, feel free to discuss. Rather, what I'm saying is that the stuff I've made out of scope are things I've done already and maximized their benefit from changing.)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-06-05 03:00
I put my RH fingers down from open G to throat Bb to both add tonal substance to the throat notes and also in preparation when going between registers to keep things smooth.
And with that keeping the RH fingers down thing, a while back I had someone absolutely disagreeing with me when I told him to keep his right hand fingers down when going from A to B as he was having a lot of trouble with the B speaking (and he blamed his clarinet and every other clarinet he tried for being 'out of adjustment'). His argument against it was it's not in any fingering charts and none of his teachers have told him to do that, so he pretty much said to me 'I'm not having someone like YOU tell me that's how to do it!'. I spoke to his teacher and he said that getting through to this bloke was like talking to a brick wall. He was glad when he no longer had to teach him. I also lent him two of my clarinets that he wanted to buy, but he returned them with the bridge keys bent on both when I clearly showed him how to assemble them. He also thought buying a brand new Yamaha 450 was much better value than buying a used R13 or similar as the Yamaha cost less and was new. There's just no reasoning with some people.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2016-06-05 03:02)
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Author: locke9342
Date: 2016-06-05 03:04
for the Bb i do the standard Bb+ 3+4+ C# key. This is a really cool fingering, but it may not work with ur instrument, just play around with different keys
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-05 03:26
Let me retry this.
I had a gig the other day with someone even older (gasp) than me. He talked about his love for a new Chadash barrel--which as it turns out seems irrelevant here after the fact.
We've played together from quite some time and I told him, because he does, "David," you've really got good throat tones. The music just seemed to have more than its share of notes, but none held for any degree of time such that resonance fingerings described above, or use of the right hand trill key (a better sounding I believe, and I enjoy using when possible, was plausible.)
I said, "David, do you attribute some of this to the new barrel?"
Honestly, not arrogantly he looked at me, put his hand on his throat and said, "it's about what goes on here."
I'll have to ask him when I see him later this month for the start of a summer gig we do together exactly what he meant.
Until such time, and that said, any thoughts?
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2016-06-05 04:27
Resonance fingerings not only vary from instrument to instrument, I own clarinets from at least 4 major professional brands, but even vary depending on the mouthpiece and reed set up used at any specific time. So constant experimentaion in this area is a must even to point of checking what works best "on the night"
As to the other aspect then it all comes down to what you hear in your minds ear.
If you don't "hear" that full resonant sound inside your head then you are never going to make it on the instrument.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-06-05 13:39
Once you have good resonance fingers at the ready, I also like to think of the "Bb" as a parameter. Once you realize that "Bb" is a "limit," then in critical passages where it is exposed, you make sure that you play the other notes around it softer so that it all evens out.
I guess this would be most obvious if you thought about this "slow, exposed passage" played at your loudest dynamic. All the notes around the "Bb" would NOT be at your loudest, whereas the "Bb" would be at its loudest.
....................Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-06-05 17:31
In my own experience, the throat shape does have an effect on the body of throat Bb. I only mention Bb because I don't think there's anything much really wrong acoustically with the others. You can make G-G#-A louder and maybe adjust pitch a little with resonance fingerings (which you asked to exclude in your original post), but it is possible to make Bb fuller - less airy - by simply opening the throat. Playing with a deliberately open throat - low tongue, feeling of a yawn - in general seems out of favor today, especially here, and I don't really disagree that pulling the throat into what *feels* like an open position is necessarily a good way to improve sound over the whole compass of the instrument, but I think it does improve Bb4 when tone quality is important.
This presupposes, though, that you're using a reed/mouthpiece combo that's responsive and not prone itself to breathiness. We all know that Bb4 is problematic because we're using a register vent to produce it that is too small and not properly placed to be a true tone hole, making it a uniquely poor note acoustically. I think, again in my own experience (but we sometimes misinterpret the sensations our own anatomy is sending us), air volume is perhaps more important for Bb than air speed, so low tongue position and a feeling of openness, provided it's still relaxed and not being pulled to rigidity, is more important than the Venturi (or Bernoulli) effect of directing the air flow with a higher tongue position in producing an optimal Bb.
I thought about this again in a recent thread that brought up the difference between Marcellus and Gigliotti over the idea of playing with an "open throat." The general attitude, at least here on the BB, is that "open throat" actually means a tongue position that opens at the front and results in a constriction of the opening farther back in the pharyngeal area. That certainly can be the result of "yawning." Yawning can also cause rigidity in the tissues inside the mouth itself, which cuts down on resonance. But, as Gigliotti applied "open throat", it definitely didn't constrict his throat or his air column or dull his sound, and he also had one of the clearest, most consistent-sounding scales through the throat register I've ever heard.
Karl
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Author: Burt
Date: 2016-06-05 18:06
Perhaps the register key does not open far enough. An easy way to check is to remove the key and see if the Bb is better. If so, the key opening can be increased by:
1. installing a thinner pad on the key;
2. installing a thinner bumper cork under the thumb;
3. routing the body of the clarinet under the bumper cork.
Opening it too far will cause intonation problems (as you could tell with the key removed) and impair your ability to open and close it quickly.
Burt Marks
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-05 19:17
Karl, Yawning-this triggered a memory..
In Stein's Art of Clarinet Playing p. 21, as you too may recall, Stein talks of hiding his yawn at evening concerts, when not playing during portions of music, and the benefits at times of mimicking aspects of this mouth position during actual play....
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-06-05 19:30
It can be misused, and some clarinetists - there may be, I think, such a consensus here - believe that yawning and trying to open your throat are bad because, again I think, of the results caused by misuse - tension and rigidity are tone killers for any wind instrument, including the voice. It's easier to remain flexible with a higher tongue. Imitating a yawn with a closed mouth (the embouchure remains sealed around the mouthpiece) was more in vogue in the early to mid 20th century. But I find it beneficial in playing passages involving throat Bb.
Karl
Post Edited (2016-06-05 19:54)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-06-06 04:21
I still contend the "yawn," or "open" feeling is a result of letting the back of the tongue drop downwards (as what happens when your dentist tells you to say AHH). This results in occluding the top of your throat - lessening the flow of air (I'm not saying it stops air flow, just makes it less efficient).
Though there is SOOOO much baggage that comes with what we develop at infancy concerning speech or "feeling" analogies. I think a lot of what we think of as a throat thing, or even a tongue thing, is nothing more than the amount of pressure we exert on the reed with our jaw and or lips. I realize that isolating each one of the aspects of one of the descriptions we throw around like "yawn" can be daunting.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-06-06 05:36
The reason anyone would use a yawn as an image of what's involved is exactly because we don't really always know what's going on physically when we do things. "Open your throat" involves controlling anatomy many of us don't even know is there. But we all yawn at one time or another.
I know how passionately you object to using the image as a way to increase air flow, but the fact is that there have been excellent players who have taught and presumably used the idea.
"I still contend the "yawn," or "open" feeling is a result of letting the back of the tongue drop downwards (as what happens when your dentist tells you to say AHH). This results in occluding the top of your throat - lessening the flow of air..."
Apart from the fact that my dentist is generally unconcerned with my throat - it's my doctor who asks me to do this - the result is that as my tongue drops my uvula rises when I say "ahh" and she can see farther into my throat (as I can when I do this while looking in a mirror). I think there are certainly things that can be done in the name of opening the throat that can somewhat occlude the air column and at the same time damp the resonance that should be set up in the mouth. But I disagree that these are necessary consequences of an "open throat." Players will have to judge for themselves from their results.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-06-06 05:43
The reason your doctor (sorry, I meant doctor) sees more of the top of your throat is because the back of your tongue is stuffed further down. Again, occlusion.
Gigliotti obviously did other things, and perhaps that imagery can help some people in certain circumstances. However, I just feel compelled to point out the anatomic realities - whether they audibly get in the way or not.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-06-06 06:57
Paul Aviles wrote:
> The reason your doctor (sorry, I meant doctor) sees more of the
> top of your throat is because the back of your tongue is
> stuffed further down. Again, occlusion.
Oh, Paul, do you think I would have written that my uvula also rises if I hadn't gone to a mirror and checked first?
>
> Gigliotti obviously did other things, and perhaps that imagery
> can help some people in certain circumstances. However, I
> just feel compelled to point out the anatomic realities -
>
But we aren't talking, rally, about anatomy. we are (or at least I was) talking about an image - a feeling of yawning. Whatever the anatomic realities, your "contention" sounds like it's more your conjecture about what happens back where neither of us has probably ever seen. There are more ways than one to skin a cat. Why must there always be only one way to play the clarinet well?
Karl
Post Edited (2016-06-06 16:46)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2016-06-06 07:06
A reverse taper barrel would create more back pressure than a cylindrical one, which might make a difference. Voicing the throat could also make a difference, as others have mentioned.
HOWEVER: The Bb is the worst sounding note on the horn, because it's made wrong. The register key is a compromise between where the Bb should be and where the register key should be. The holes are also very small. It just sounds bad.
If the Bb sounds good it probably has more to do with equipment than the player (assuming the players are competent). Have him play your horn with your set-up and see what happens. Try his. The register key pipe, venting, pad thicknesses, possible adjustments to tone holes, and kinds of pads could all have an effect (basically it could be anything). If he sounds awesome and you sound hissy, and you are both good players, it is probably a difference in the horns or set up.
That attitude like EVERYTHING IS THE PLAYER drives me nuts. It's just snobbery. They would have you believe that they can pick up a rusty tin pipe off the side of the road and make it sound like Ricardo Morales in an echo chamber (even though they are just as snobby about what they play, not to mention that Ricardo is playing a tricked out custom $$$$ Backun).
Don't worry about it too much, it's just Bb.
- Matthew Simington
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-06-06 12:44
Wow.
Two great posts in a row.
Firstly the "tin pipe thing." I'll grant you that I might have some trouble if I grabbed a student's horn with their mouthpiece on it too (different 'set-ups' aside; some mouthpieces and/or mouthpiece reed combos are pretty awful). But I could use my mouthpiece on most reasonably well adjusted clarinets and get the same results (also accounting for finding the most in-tune or clear sounding vent fingering for that horn). It comes down 90% to knowing what to do, not how much you spend on your equipment.
And I've come up with a GREAT way for EVERYONE to check what is going on when they OPEN up or YAWN......without an x-ray machine.
OK: Put down your clarinet. Take one hand and cup your chin, placing thumb and third fingers at the corners of your mouth, and place the tip of your index finger in your embouchure. Now take your free hand and place its four fingera around your throat (starting just below your chin). Then pretend to play (start off though by making sure you feel some pressure on the index finger). Now go back and forth between open and closed throat (whatever that means to you), or between "EEEE" and "YAWWWW" or whatever.
See if you feel the movement at your throat.
See if you feel your jaw drop away from your index finger.
See if you feel your lips relax.
Then once you are convinced that you have a rock steady embouchure throughout moving back and forth, no matter what you do, try that with the clarinet and see what difference that makes to the sound.
It's free and there's no associated risk of cancer.
....................Paul Aviles
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-06 16:19
Matt74:
Gear: interesting that high end boutique clarinet makers (e.g. Backun) haven't developed a mechanism such that when the register key is pressed, exactly one of two different holes in the clarinet open--not just one as is the case now--depending upon whether the throat "A" key is actuated as well.
....the presumption here being that the standard register key hole opens 99.9% of the time when the register key is pressed, but that that new and special "B flat" hole opens instead when the throat "A key is also actuated.
...of course, as I get ahead of myself, players often find use in pressing the throat "A" key while playing and holding the full fingered "B" just above so as to create a less stuffy version of that note. This gear change would likely prevent use of this fingering option, barring yet a 3rd mechanism that opens the register key if, say, the throat "A" AND register key is actuated AND, say, the pinky keys controlling the bottom of the clarinet tone holes are actuated as well.
Complexity grows exponentially here especially in light of better "standard" register key design and techniques discussed above that would make such a gear change to much "buck for its bang."
Plus--who knows what odd fingerings players use for upper altissimo notes such this change could reek havoc on producing such notes.
Post Edited (2016-06-06 16:39)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-06-06 16:56
WhitePlainsDave wrote:
> Matt74:
>
> Gear: interesting that high end boutique clarinet makers (e.g.
> Backun) haven't developed a mechanism such that when the
> register key is pressed, exactly one of two different holes in
> the clarinet open--not just one as is the case now--depending
> upon whether the throat "A" key is actuated as well.
>
Mazzeo, of course, added a clutch that automated opening the side tone hole that normally opens when you press the 3rd (from the bottom) RH "trill" key when you play A and hold down the RH rings.
Also, Patricola has a mechanism that does what you describe. My Patricola C clarinet has this, and it's very effective.
Karl
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-06 21:23
Karl:
I was somewhat familiar with some manufacturers having historically addressed throat Bb issues with hardware solutions (register hole pipe height, width, and placement aside).
Attached seems to be a Mazzeo (maybe not, or a variation thereof) that vents not simply the standard register hole, but one that seems to also vent the tone hold with the screw on top. It doesn't seem to be an either "the register key or this new tone hole" type setup, not that you suggested otherwise.
I'm guessing the screw was there to fine tune how much this second vent opened. And I want to guess, at least in this picture, actuation was effected by...
(this is said given the clarinet oriented for play)
by pushing up with the right pointer, that somewhat unusually shaped touch piece just to the right of the left pointer tone hole..
It's entirely possible this isn't [the] Mazzeo [you speak of,] or I've mis-described the method of actuation that the clarinet in the picture provides.
Ken [Shaw] did a good job a while back summarizing some of the hardware alternatives for this solution and their pros/cons.
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=239719&t=212664
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-06 21:27
Attachment: test.jpg (682k)
Karl:
I was somewhat familiar with some manufacturers having historically addressed throat Bb issues with hardware solutions (register hole pipe height, width, and placement aside).
Attached seems to be a Mazzeo (maybe not, or a variation thereof) that vents not simply the standard register hole, but one that seems to also vent the tone hold with the screw on top. It doesn't seem to be an either "the register key or this new tone hole" type setup, not that you suggested otherwise.
I'm guessing the screw was there to fine tune how much this second vent opened. And I want to guess, at least in this picture, actuation was effected by...
(this is said given the clarinet oriented for play)
pushing up with the right pointer, that somewhat unusually shaped touch piece just to the right of the left pointer tone hole..
It's entirely possible this isn't [the] Mazzeo [you speak of,] or I've mis-described the method of actuation that the clarinet in the picture provides.
Ken [Shaw] did a good job a while back summarizing some of the hardware alternatives for this solution and their pros/cons.
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=239719&t=212664
And if I've described the actuation method correctly, it doesn't look like something that can easily be done when playing a series of notes in succession quickly, that include the throat Bb.
Please do fill in the blanks here if you see and know where my narrative falls short.
P.S. True, a fastly attacked throat Bb's sound quality matters less....just be nice for it sound better taken fast or slow.
Post Edited (2016-06-06 21:44)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2016-06-06 22:07
Of course, this tangent completely redirects your original question, which had to do with what the *player* could do apart from using resonance or alternate fingerings. If mechanical changes to the clarinet are re-introduced to the discussion, there are probably a number of mechanical solutions that have been tried. The problem, like that of the articulated G# and the left-hand G#/D#, seems to be that players trained without the extra help prefer to keep life uncomplicated by staying with whatever successful coping skills they've already learned to apply.
Karl
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-06 22:10
Tangent noted--unless one liberally interprets "throat, and wind" of this OP to include words of desire to clarinet makers to "build a better mousetrap" here. ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
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Author: BflatNH
Date: 2016-06-10 14:33
1. Another barrel - they have sweet spots (rotationally)
2. Ligature - (I use VD Opt, horz bars) & position (slightly lower for throat tones)
3. Taper the register key pad & spacing
4. Reed selection & reed position (vertical)
5. Fingerings
6. Breath support
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