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Re: Mouthpiece pitch tendency

Author: zhangray4
Date: 2018-03-22 06:21

Let's say you have a mouthpiece with tip opening 1.15 mm, somewhat open. And we're assuming you are using a reed of the proper strength, so not a soft reed to play jazz. If you don't apply any embouchure pressure at all, you will basically just be sending air into your instrument, and no sound will be created, since the reed is too far away from the mouthpiece to vibrate, and it is this vibration which produces sound on the clarinet.

But let's say you have a mouthpiece that is identical to the one mentioned before but has a smaller tip opening (let's say 1.05 mm). And you are still using the proper strength reed for this mouthpiece. You might still have to apply a bit of pressure, but you will need much less embouchure pressure to produce a good sound. That's because the reed tip is already closer to the mouthpiece tip due to the mouthpiece being more closed. So you don't have to use as much embouchure pressure to get the reed close enough to the mouthpiece in order to get it vibrating.

Eddie Daniels explains it pretty well in this video, in case I wasn't able to explain it well enough: https://youtu.be/10LxbdRJ-UQ

-- Ray Zhang

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