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Re: Double lip question

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2021-05-19 20:08

nellsonic wrote:

> I have plenty of students who do high school marching band
> playing double lip, with minimal lip over the teeth. It
> doesn't cause them any discomfort.

Of course, many kids don't know when they're hurting themselves. A kids, we mostly complained when the pain (physical or mental) was caused by something we didn't want to do. We didn't pay so much attention when it was a chosen activity.

> Most people can play double
> lip just fine if they start that way or build up to it very
> gradually.

Yes. In some areas of the world most people did or still do. But most clarinetists who learn as beginners in the U.S. or possibly anywhere in the Americas don't start out with DL. The kids I've taught who played DL did it on their own as beginners without instruction from anyone because they didn't like the sensations of having their upper teeth on the mouthpiece. So, you're right, but few established SL players are patient or motivated enough to build DL gradually - it's easier for most to fall back to SL.

> There are some whose lip is too short and/or teeth
> are too long to accommodate it.

Apparently, yes. Tony Pay has said so here. Gigliotti said much the same thing in an interview I remember reading years ago, maybe in The Clarinet. And Ricardo Morales says in one of his videos something to the effect that, while he suspects DL is a better approach, he has never had the time without playing obligations to develop it for himself. Especially since he does just fine with single lip.

To the OP, if you want to try the DL approach, find a comfortable spot for your upper lip - don't try to follow a rule that someone has laid down - and work at it at first for very short periods of time - 5 minutes or a little more, stopping before you're experiencing real pain. Build the time gradually, never going to the point of severe soreness. I think Fuzzy's suggestion works well - do some of your early DL playing with just the upper lip controlling the mouthpiece - keep the teeth off the beak entirely.

Karl

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Double lip question new

smill01

2021-05-18 11:25