Author: maxopf
Date: 2014-09-27 03:24
Ok, I'm pretty certain I've figured it out. The solution was along the lines of what Paul Aviles, Tony Pay and my teacher had been saying about muscular over-involvement.
Ever since I had switched to a flat-chin embouchure, I had been trying to contort my mouth muscles in weird ways to get a "perfect looking embouchure," since I just assumed there must be a great amount of pretty forced muscular involvement.
However, through this post and talking to my teacher, I discovered that I was just overcomplicating things. In the last couple of days I've forced myself to revert to a really basic embouchure (around half of the bottom lip over the bottom teeth, pull in in your lips like you're saying the letter Q, that's it) and the fatigue problem has essentially gone away and my sound has not become any worse (if anything it's gotten better.) I was just creating unnecessary tension.
@seabreeze: I will try that as well. So far I've really liked the sound I've gotten with the Pilgerstorfers, and with my "fixed" embouchure they don't seem to be causing too much fatigue, but I'll give some lighter reeds a try.
Originally I played V12 4s on the CWF (this is what my teacher plays, though I think she adjusts them pretty heavily), but I found the Pilgerstorfer 4.5s to feel a little softer and liked the tone I got with them better.
After breaking in four reeds at a time (my case holds 8, and I always have one set of four that's about 2-3 weeks older than the other four), I put them in my reed case and order them by strength, with slot 1 being the softest of the bunch, slot 4 being the hardest, etc. Sometimes I do what you describe, using the softest ones if I have to get through a really long school band or orchestra rehearsal. I'll try doing that more often.
Post Edited (2014-09-27 03:32)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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