Author: DougR
Date: 2013-10-30 20:52
It doesn't matter what kind of embouchure or mouthpiece you use if there isn't enough AIR getting into the horn. "It may be that when I got down to a reed that I could actually blow through, but is still a bit hard, I stopped supporting with air and started biting instead."
That's kind of what it sounds like to me, especially the part about "I stopped supporting with air and started biting instead."
I'm tempted to quote the old joke about "Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do this!" Doctor: "Then don't do that!!".
ButI think you're on to something with the air support business. If I understand it correctly, you ALWAYS have a strong air pressure going through the mouthpiece (breathing "from your lower back," as I heard Yehuda Gilad put it in a master class). Joe Allard used to conceptualize a three-stage breath from the gut upward, and there are lots of paradigms out there to use to model breath support and velocity (you might take a look at Harvey Pittel's youtube videos on breath support; and, although I haven't seen it myself, Tom Ridenour supposedly has a video in which he likens the clarinet player to an aerosol can, connoting a fairly pressurized stream of air going into the instrument).
Clarinet definitely needs more of that "aerosol can" air pressure than sax does. My teacher has had me use double-lip therapeutically on clarinet in order to experience how much "bite" the clarinet requires (i.e., not very much) and still sound good, and ALWAYS with a solid, supported column of air going into the horn.
So that's MY 2c. Along the line of Tony's posts above, you might try asking yourself, "What is it I THINK I'm trying to accomplish by biting?" … and then find another way to accomplish it.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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