 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Speculator Sam
Date: 2018-05-09 02:18
So my story goes like this. I tried all the double lip embouchure on my bass for fun, and other than some more than normal mild squeaks it seemed that I achieved a bit more of that rounder Timbre that good bass clarinetist are known for. That, and my instrument was sharp today so it helped with that having weak double lip to flatten the pitch.
Last time I tried to double lip embouchure on soprano clarinet, and I didn't improve at all this by having stuck with it for 2 weeks. I know it's good to experiment with double Obama sure rallies every once in awhile but alas.
So what's your opinion? Any experience doing double lip embouchure on base? Thanks for reading. I think I'll incorporate into as much practice as possible and stick with it for at least two weeks.
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Author: oian
Date: 2018-05-09 04:27
You may have already seen them, but there is a three part video on double lip on youtube by William Ridenour. I've been playing Bass clarinet for about 4 years (three using double lip) It works very well for me, and there are no longer tooth marks on the mouthpiece. One must be careful though, if you get lazy it doesn't work. Be aware however that it requires strength in some muscles in the upper lip that do not come into play with single lip. Don't be surprised if your upper lip tires easily when you start. strengthening will likely take more than two weeks. I'm convinced and will not likely go back. The main benefit I see is that it eliminates the tendency to bite down on the reed.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2018-05-09 06:44
oian wrote:
> Be aware however that it requires strength in
> some muscles in the upper lip that do not come into play with
> single lip.
One approach to single lip is to duplicate the muscular action of the upper lip of double lip, but pulling the upper lip against the teeth instead of under them.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2018-05-09 07:00
Speculator Sam wrote:
> So my story goes like this. I tried all the double lip
> embouchure on my bass for fun, and other than some more than
> normal mild squeaks it seemed that I achieved a bit more of
> that rounder Timbre ....
> That, and my instrument was sharp today so it helped with that
> having weak double lip to flatten the pitch.
>
If you do double lip effectively it isn't weak. The muscles need to be strong. It *can* bring your pitch down a little if you were biting the pitch up with single lip. If your double lip embouchure is truly weak, it could explain the squeaks, which can happen when you aren't in control of the reed.
> Last time I tried to double lip embouchure on soprano clarinet,
> and I didn't improve at all this by having stuck with it for 2
> weeks. I know it's good to experiment with double Obama sure
> rallies every once in awhile but alas.
>
I'm going to assume that your spell check changed embouchure to Obama, since I can't imagine what out last President could have to do with this.
> So what's your opinion? Any experience doing double lip
> embouchure on base? I think I'll
> incorporate into as much practice as possible and stick with it
> for at least two weeks.
I do play both bass and soprano double lip. Others may disagree, but I don't think it's the best approach to stick with it exclusively for two weeks or, really, at all until it's comfortable. You end up tiring your embouchure and irritating the inside of your upper lip, which can cause you to distort the embouchure and lose control, even to bite (yes, you can bite with double lip, but the resulting pain is double that of biting with single lip). I would start with maybe 10 minutes of easy playing (scales or easy music without leaps over large intervals), then go back to playing single lip for the rest of your session. Gradually try to increase the time you use double lip but be conservative about how long you use it in any one playing session. Once you feel comfortable, do as much as you can without tiring.
Check Tom Ridenour's videos out. If you have a clarinet teacher, he or she can help you do the double lip effectively.
Karl
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Author: Speculator Sam
Date: 2018-05-09 07:44
Ha Oqbama spellcheck that's hilarious! I meant to say "...despite having stuck with double lip for two weeks". I tried doing long tones alternating between single and double when I tried it on soprano and seemed dreadful. I find that it seemed reasonably comfortable today. I'll go watch Ridenour's videos.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2018-05-10 02:38
I have always used double lip on the soprano instrument so it was quite natural for me to keep that embouchure when I started playing the other instruments e.g. Basset Horn and Alto and Bass clarinets.
I can't really imagine having to switch basic embouchure every time I switched instruments.
However in the end it comes down to what is comfortable for you (after of course a reasonable amount of time practising with double lip).
I have a fairly long upper lip, which is a great help with the double lip embouchure.
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Author: Speculator Sam
Date: 2018-05-10 04:04
That makes sense Caroline. A good point to suggest is that, much like using a harder reed, the player proves nothing by using a different embouchure just because someone like Ricardo Morales or Phillipe Cuper using and/or encouraging a double-lip emb. Apparently, using the double-lip "by default" sets the mouth up to using good habits like not biting, bringing the corners in, and setting up the oral cavity for higher registers especially. All in all, experimenting and trying new things can prove fruitful.
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2018-05-10 05:46
Based on very limited experience, it seems like bass is more susceptible to weird tone colors and squeaks through biting. I'm guessing that's because the reed is bigger, and there are vibration nodes in it where a little bit of localized pressure can easily kick it into a different harmonic. Anyway, I get much less of that with double lip, but I need to use a soft reed for that.
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Author: Dibbs
Date: 2018-05-10 15:26
I don't think it can be the size of the reed that makes basses squeaky and squonky. Tenor saxes have similar sized reeds and it doesn't happen on them.
I would love to know for sure what does cause it. Stephen Fox that suggests it is something to do with a mismatch between the instrument and vocal tract acoustic impedances but he gives no references to back up that claim nor have I ever seen mention of it elsewhere. Perhaps it comes from his own informal research.
http://www.sfoxclarinets.com/Bass_Clar.html
On thing of note is the bore size. You would expect the bore of a bass clarinet to have double the cross sectional area of a soprano clarinet. That's how organ builders design ranks of pipes. I believe that a French bass clarinet has a bore of about 23mm. Working backwards that would be roughly equivalent to a soprano clarinet bore of about 16mm which would be huge. Could that have something to do with it?
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