Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-01-19 13:42
Tom Puwalski wrote:
>> I practice with a very good recording set up and I have to admit, when I keep everything else the same, and then put my top teeth on the mouthpiece. It sounds the bloody same! I do find I really have to concentrate on keeping oral cavity the same and stay really sensitive to the pressure, because if I don't that sound will change and very noticeably.>>
The day before yesterday I decided to make an experiment myself. Although it's very difficult for me to double-lip -- both because of my short upper lip and also because I have a slight front teeth horizontal overlap that creates sharp edges -- I felt it was time for me to put my mouth where my mouth was, so to speak.
So, choosing to play my period Bb clarinet because it has a smaller mouthpiece, I removed the rubber patch and played double-lip for an hour or so.
And, there were two results. I found that it was indeed too painful to continue, and still have a sore and slightly lacerated upper lip after a day. But -- there was a distinct improvement in a particular area.
On a period clarinet, there are often certain high notes that are unstable using the standard fingering. They will play at two slightly different pitches, which often infuriatingly straddle the pitch that you actually want. On my Simiot copy, one such note is the high D. (This situation is preferable to the situation on my Grenser copy, where the instability is a tone lower, on C; but not by much:-(
Anyway, I found that it was easier to choose the pitch that I wanted with the double-lip, and also that there was little difficulty in making a good sound over the rest of the instrument. Of course, the passage-work was clumsier -- the instrument has no thumbrest, and the slightly more elastic hold on the mouthpiece would take some getting used to.
The effect of this, on returning to my standard embouchure, was as Tom describes above. Addressing the high D, I was much more careful to flex my lower lip, minimising reed/lip contact, and this proved to be the right direction to go.
And now I think about it, that's not surprising. In order to 'choose' the right harmonic, you need a precise tool. In a metaphor I've used before here, you need a small contact like that between a high pressure racing-bicycle tyre and the ground -- rather than the coarse contact between a flabby, low pressure, live-in-the-shed down-to-the-local-shops-lost-pump bike tyre and the ground:-)
I fancy that I tend towards the former rather than the latter in the normal course of events, but the experience was a wake-up call to 'pump my tyres up' even more in these particular circumstances.
>> ... it might be a color that I could find useful for some piece of music.>>
Yes, and you can do that with double-lip too, no?
Tony
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