 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-11-08 04:04
When we discusss 'throat open' when playing clarinet, sometimes we confuse larynx are open too. But this is wrong. Like singers, expert wind instrumentalists nearly close larynx. This page by a doctor has pictures of larynxes of expert, amateur, and beginner. Now the favorite phrase by many teachers 'play like singing' has a different meaning!
http://www02.so-net.ne.jp/~s-mukai/English/Blow.html
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Author: Amy
Date: 2001-11-08 04:59
Obscene, but absolutely fascinating! I just wonder how exactly you contol your larynx...
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Author: donald nicholls
Date: 2001-11-08 10:23
our embrochure- the actual contact with the reed is not too important (well, sure it makes a difference).... but the most important function of our embochure is the way it moves things inside our head that it is very difficult for us to control deliberately. For example- try pulling your top lip against your teeth.... then push it down- you have at the same time probably felt that muscles inside your mouth etc moved at the same time. To actually explain to someone which muscles moved how would be impossible, but by manipulating how the EXTERIOR facial muscles are poised, we can affect what happens inside....
OK, so there are lots of other functions of the embrochure, and it's really important in other ways..... but a huge amount of our "induvidual tone quality" comes from the bits we can't see and are difficult to deliberately manipulate. The embrochure works to influence these factors, only we don't really recognise this.
donald
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Author: Bill
Date: 2001-11-08 14:16
Differences in resistance from the instrument and differences in set-ups also affect your address of the reed and your facial shape, etc. Bizarre but true: I feel I am playing my best with I lead the tone off from my nose (!). When the tone is originating in my "jaw" or "mouth," I'm less happy with the playing in general. --Bill.
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Author: donald nicholls
Date: 2001-11-08 17:05
just re-read my entry- "the actual contact with the reed is not too important" weeeeellllll, maybe i can adjust that to "the actual contact with the reed is over-rated"....... that one i stand by, the other? well, it was late at night and sleep beckoned
donald
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Author: sarah
Date: 2001-11-08 20:49
On the site mentioned above I found the descriptions of expert, amature, and beginner quite amusing. And true.
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Author: Emms
Date: 2001-11-09 14:11
How do you play clarinet with a tube up your anaesthetised nose?
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-11-11 12:25
Simple. If your nose was anaesthetised you would not notice the tube.
But can we conclude from the experiment that exhaling experienced players close their larynx when their nose is anaesthetised. Hehe!
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-11-11 12:39
Simple. If your nose was anaesthetised you would not notice the tube.
But can we conclude from the experiment that exhaling experienced players close their larynx when their nose is anaesthetised. Hehe!
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-11-11 13:15
But seriously, what a fascinating research reference.... but I have a alternative postulation as to why the larynx may be more closed in the experienced player. Off the top of my head only, as usual......
The player who gradually learns an instrument is usually oblivious to many of his behaviour patterns for playing simply because of the gradual nature of his learning. The behaviour patterns gradually becoming so automatic that the experienced player still has no consciousness of them, just as we are unconscious of the multitude of muscle adjustments we make every second simply to keep our balance, or control our vision.
By contrast a significantly experienced instrumentalist, who SUDDENLY transfers his skills to playing another related instrument, can gain insights of playing that are often overlooked by the gradual learner.
I encountered an example of this on first playing baritone sax after significant experience on picc/flute/clarinet and other saxes. The bari, on the low notes especially seemed to need a quite different embouchure and air pressure/flow combination to INITIATE a note than to sustain it with good tone. Every cello or string base player would surely acknowledge this phenomon when he has to 'attack' the string to initate a note. Hence the tone during the attack is quite different from the tone during the sustain part of the note.
Now I presume that this phenomenon also exists for all the instruments in the study referred to, but perhaps to a less immediately noticable extent. To make a sudden change in air pressure/flow from a note's attack to the note's sustain is perhaps most effectively achieved (without sacrificing tone) by incorporating the larynx as a valve which controls air flow. For the low air flow involved this would only work if the valve were almost closed.
So perhaps the experienced player, always at the ready for the next tongued note,
keeps the larynx almost closed at the ready for this role as a flow controlling valve. The beginner is yet to master this demanding art of valve adjustment during tongueing.
My point is that just because this larynx phenomenon happens with experienced players does not necessarily mean it has anything to do with resonance and general tone quality. Its purpose MAY be solely for controlling air flow for effective, clean tongueing.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-11-19 04:11
>Obscene, but absolutely fascinating! I just wonder how exactly you contol your larynx..
Try to lift up a heavy thing with your both arms, you can feel larynx closed. After feeling it, you can close or open it intentionally. If one does this, he/she can do "breath attack", i.e. articulate notes without tounguing. If one sings a song larynx closed, he/she feels skull is actually resonating.
Likewise most players can also intentinaly close nostril. By this one can pressurize his breath.
Human beings are strange creatures...
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