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RE: Ligatures

Author: Lelia
Date: 2000-11-07 12:16

I also used the old no-name, 2-screw ligatures for years. After hearing Jim Lande play splendidly on a shoelace ligature, I tried that and found that it did improve my tone. The shoelace has a great advantage for people who play vintage instruments, because it gives complete flexibility of matching up various reeds and mouthpeices. I don't have the patience to adjust the darned thing for everyday practice, but the shoelace did convince me that the old 2-screw cheapies had to go -- especially since most of mine were battered and probably putting uneven pressure on the reed.

I use two Bonades now, the standard type and also the inverted. IMHO they're both excellent ligatures, depending on the mpc. (I 've been playing mostly on an old hard rubber no-name, a hard rubber Sumner Accousticut and a Hite Premier.) One caveat with the Bonade inverted is that it will scratch the back of the mpc. When I bought it, I ran my finger over the insides of the plates on about half a dozen of them in the store and chose the smoothest. Some of them had terrible little razor edges. (Why aren't they *all* smooth? It wouldn't be the biggest engineering feat in the world to clean up the edges, on a ligature that retails for $20-25!) I followed a tip David Niethamer left on the klarinet e-list and put ordinary clear package tape on the backs of my mouthpieces as protection. The clear tape lets the logo (if any) show through so I know which mpc I'm using. Some people use a bite patch the same way, or coat the inside of the ligature with various things.

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