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Re: Proper Embouchure and how to get Ping sound

Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2017-08-14 04:10

The word PING can most surely be confusing. Another word is Ring. Maybe they are kinda the same, but I don't look at these words as the same.

It's pretty much like telling someone the difference between warm and dark. The Germans still have that sweet warm sound with the smaller bores, but the French instruments are bigger bores and darker sounding. This is impossible to describe. Up close the dark sound sounds nice, but in halls it may not be heard. The sound won't carry.

So sound really plays games with our ears. At the ClarinetFest everyone pretty much sounded the same. No one had that great sound when you stopped to look to see who was playing. Not one. Everyone had that Vandoren M13 sound and the Zinner sound. It's not bad, but again everyone sounded the same. I think we need to put an end to this and let people sound special. Give them the tools to be a cut ahead of everyone.

One lady recently returned a mouthpiece because it played sharp. Of course it did, she was using a 63mm barrel! She should have been using a 65mm to a 66mm barrel. This kind of shows how screwed up the clarinet sound and intonation is. So she went back to a dead mouthpiece and an out of tune horn, because there is no way to tune a horn with a 63mm barrel. Lots of notes will be out of tune, some sharp some flat and some just dead sounding. But she will be sadly happy!

My personal beliefs are the deep chambers and baffles take away from the ping. It's interesting that the French Zinner mouthpieces are much deeper compared to their German Zinner models. So the ping gets muffled with the French mouthpieces. We need to train our ears to hear that ping and ring on the instruments. It's really that simple.

I'm bringing this back. That ping and the ring. More and more players will want this sound. Even Ricardo went with an Italian glass mouthpiece to get that ping. Smart man. But we don't need glass mouthpieces. Just well designed mouthpieces.

Great topic.

Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces

Yamaha Artist 2015

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