Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2005-12-03 14:52
I play double lip like my teacher, (Iggy Gennusa) and his teachers, (Ralph McClean, and Daniel Bonade). I think it has to most potential to be the most non-obtrusive style of embouchure going. By non-obtrusive, I mean, it interferes with the reeds vibration the least.
Most clarinetists don’t sound as good as they could, not because they don’t posses a $550 mouthpiece made from reproduction chedeville rubber, or because they don’t have a bell or barrel cut from a 200 year old cocobolo tree. Clarinetist sound bad, because they inhibit the reed from vibrating. Most have bought into the mis-conception of embouchure. You cannot get a clarinet reed to vibrate with your embouchure. Only in the presence of pressurize air with the reed move. You can however stop the reed from vibrating with embouchure, by using too much pressure and doing it in the wrong spot.
Follow me on this:
A. Turn the mouthpiece sideways and look at the opening of the reed and mouthpiece curve.
B. Take your thumb and press the reed closed at the tip. Notice the ease at which you can accomplish this
C. Start moving your thumb down the reed applying the same pressure. Notice when you get close to the point where the reed leaves the mouthpiece table, it’s really hard to close the reed off at the tip.
D. If your bottom lip is on the tip side of the fulcrum point, where the reed leaves the mouthpiece, you are stifling the reed’s vibration. Most likely you are using a mouthpiece that’s more open than it needs to be or you are using a reed that’s too hard also.
The vicious circle starts: closing the reed off, playing sharp, getting a harder reed, one that’s not really well balanced, and using even more pressure to get it to work.
So in my opinion the first thing you need to do is start putting enough mouthpiece in your mouth. The more mouthpiece you take in, the less negative effect the embouchure can have. Take a look in Larry Guy’s book; in that photo Robert Marcellus has a lot of Kaspar shoved down his pie hole! Iggy put a lot of mouthpiece in his mouth, he had a very thin lower lip and it didn’t look like a lot, but if saw his reed it was.
So why double lip? It doesn’t really touch the reed. First off the list of absolutely great players who used it is the list of emulated players from the last century: Wright, Bonade, Gennusa, McClean. With the exception of Marcellus, who told my in a lesson in 1979 that if he could use it he would, and since that’s how I play that I should keep on using it. He also said that he rolled his top lip under, infront of his top teeth to get the benefit of opening up the oral cavity. That hits on what I feel is the main advantage of double lip. It drastically alters the oral cavity; it opens it up a lot. I can hear the difference when I record stuff using single and double. Secondly, both lips wrapped around the mouthpice is symmetrical, you get a really nice feel for the amount of pressure being used in the creation of your sound. But even Iggy’s beautifully formed double embouchure couldn’t vibrate the reed without air!
So here are a few double lip double lip fallacies.
1. You can’t play standing up with it. False, I play all day with double lip, on klezmer gigs and concerts I stand and play sometime over an hour continually.
2. You don’t have the stamina with double lip. My guess is, if you’re biting and not putting enough mouthpiece your mouth you don’t have a lot of stamina anyway. But you will be more aware of the fatigue with double lip. I will say this anything that you can do with single lip to screw up a sound; you can also learn to do with double lip.
3. Switching to double lip will screw up my technique. Well if you switch to double you become very aware of how much finger pressure you use and tension that is generated through your hands. And yes, if you’re using lots of this you will have to hit Baerman 3 and rethink your technique.
I use double lip with any student that comes to me for their first lessons. I get them put a good deal of mouthpiece in. I have them wrap both lips over their teeth and just blow. The results are fast, the kids sound good and it doesn’t take months. They get a good sound by page 5 of Rubank. That is until some stupid band director tells them that it’s wrong and fixes it until they sound bad.
If anyone give double lip a try for one month, I seriously doubt they will ever switch back. That being said, I don’t use it on bass Clarinet or Saxophone. I go with the Marcellus idea of rolling the top lip under in front of the teeth. The amount of mouthpiece that I use playing bass clarinet makes using it a little un-wieldy. But on basset horn and soprano sax I use double. It doesn’t matter what single reed mouthpiece goes in your mouth, you got to let the reed vibrate on it.
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with Lox&Vodka, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in Clarinet performance
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