 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: orchestr
Date: 2015-02-13 04:38
I am looking for suggestions for a student of mine who is having trouble squeaking. Links to sound files are here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8960692/New%20Recording%207.m4a
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8960692/Record.m4a
Things is is not:
Her equipment: I cannot get a squeak when I play on her reed/mpc/clarinet combo. She still gets the squeak on my setup. She has squeaked on numerous different reeds.
Fingers not covering holes: At least from what I see mere inches away, they are all completely covered.
Too much mouthpiece: Experimented everywhere from 1/2 inch down to teeth practically between the mouthpiece and reed. Still squeaks.
Biting: She does have a biting problem, but I've had her relax her jaw to the point where the notes are noticeably flat, and there is still a squeak.
As you can tell, it's worst when she articulates in the upper register, but even holding a throat "A" for too long will eventually squeak. I originally suspected that she was opening her throat too much (dropping her larynx) and playing with her tongue at the bottom of her mouth. Having her physically press her tongue up from under her chin with her thumb helped a little, but did not get rid of the squeaks entirely. Perhaps it's a voicing thing, but I'm not sure what direction to go to improve that.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am going crazy, and I fear that she may quit the clarinet because it is so frustrating for her!
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-02-13 05:08
You don't say how old this student is or how accomplished technically. The recordings suggest a couple of possibilities:
1. Although you say you can't reproduce the problem when you play her reed and mouthpiece, it doesn't sound like the reed is responsive to begin with. How much if any are you compensating to make her reed play? Squeaks notwithstanding, are her reeds a good match to the mouthpiece?
2. The tone sounds airy and poorly supported. It may help to approach articulating from a more legato base - have her play completely connected slower notes with full tone and no gaps, then interrupt briefly with her tongue without stopping the air flow from the lungs. This is how many of us try to teach staccato anyway, but just as many students have trouble with it and start each note with a new puff of air.
3. She is almost certainly clinching her jaw as she "attacks" on each separate puff. It may be an almost imperceptible movement, but you may be able to see it if you look specifically for it as she plays.
4. It sounds, especially on the first clip, as if she may not be articulating fully (or at all?) on the reed. If she's self-aware enough, she may be able to feel what else, if anything, her tongue is contacting. The sound suggests she's tonguing at least partially against her hard palette just above her upper teeth, but this is only a short clip and you hear much more than we can.
5. This kind of chirpy articulation is exactly what made my teacher in college suggest trying double lip as a way to gain better control over my embouchure muscles and eliminate possible pinching. In my case it worked very successfully, and after a few years of using double and single lip interchangeably (the double as a corrective for any problems I was having with single) I finally switched completely to double lip and have played that way for almost 40 years. Not a sure cure, but a possible one, and can be temporary or permanent depending on the player's comfort.
Just a couple of ideas. I'm sure you'll get lots more.
Karl
Post Edited (2015-02-13 05:31)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-02-13 05:43
I should add that when you get her to "relax her jaw to the point where the notes are noticeably flat," you may be going in a wrong direction. The squeaks come from not having enough control of the reed. She needs to get control, not by biting, which implies pressing upward against the reed, but by supporting it with her lips. This, IMO, is why double lip can help. It makes it less likely that the lower teeth will press upward against the lower lip and the reed. With the upper lip covering the top teeth, it's much more natural to pull the lips themselves together, encouraging much less direct upward pressure under the lower lip from the hard dental surfaces driven by the jaw. The lips themselves tend to do more of the work.
Karl
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Author: orchestr
Date: 2015-02-13 05:47
Thank you, Karl. Some really great suggestions to try, and I agree with everything you say. The student is 13 or 14, has been playing for 2.5 years, but has not taken private lessons or had a very good band director until this year. This was not a great reed, but she does have this problem with all of her reeds (and a few of mine I've had her try). Still, a bad reed isn't going to help things. I also think it may be related to air. She is too afraid to play with a strong airstream because she's afraid of the squeak, but it may be the weak air that's causing the squeak. Vicious cycle. She is moving something when she attacks each note, definitely her embouchure, possibly the jaw as well. We've talked about it, but I need to push her a little harder to get control of this.
Thanks again for the help! I'll report back what works.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-02-13 05:57
orchestr wrote:
> She is too afraid to play with a strong airstream because
> she's afraid of the squeak, but it may be the weak air that's
> causing the squeak. Vicious cycle.
I empathize with her. FWIW, I went through the same thing, but I wasn't 13 or 14, I was a grad student studying with the principal clarinetist of the Philadelphia Orchestra (Anthony Gigliotti). It really was paralyzing me and frustrating him. The chirps went away immediately when I started using double lip (at his suggestion) and eventually, after several weeks of playing double lip, I went back to single lip with no return of the squeaks. To this day I can't really tell you what I was doing wrong, only that whatever it was must have been incompatible with double lip.
I wish your student the best - there are few things more frustrating than the anxiety this can cause.
Karl
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-02-13 07:25
I hear four things:
1. She's moving he entire tongue forward and back. there should be almost no tongue movement. Just the tip of the tongue moves a tiny bit away from the reed.
2. She is loosening her embouchure and perhaps dropping her jaw as she tongues each note. Work with her on keeping her embouchure and jaw motionless. There should also be no motion in her throat. (If she were a guy, the adam's apple would be bobbing up and down.)
3. She's dropping and then pushing the air pressure as she tongues. Have her rest the bell on her knee (or between her knees), put her right hand on her belly her ribs and play tongued C-D-E-D-C. She'll almost certainly feel herself making a puff of air on each note. Have her become aware of producing a steady air stream, with no puffs. Puffing air and constricting the throat reinforce one another, so insist that she play a perfect legato as far as her abdomen, throat, jaw and tongue are concerned.
4. She is "attacking" each note, starting the tone with her tongue. The correct mental image (and physical action) is to set the air pressure at playing level, stop the tone with the tongue tip and then remove the tongue to "release" the tone. The tongue does nothing to start the tone. It just moves away from the reed. The tone is already there. The tongue just lets it be heard.
Have her sing C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C, first legato, then starting each note as a LA and then as a DA, but always keeping the air flowing. Don't let her sing to herself. Sing LOUD. Sing to your mother in the last row of the balcony.
Then go to the clarinet. Play a solid low C and move the tongue tip past the reed, but *miss*. Think luh-luh-luh. Then move the tongue tip toward the reed until it barely brushes the tip. Then do the same on C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C.
Think always of less effort, not more. Play a perfect legato, like a smooth-flowing stream. Articulation is like a leaf or at most a pebble skimming by.
Finally, as everyone else has said, she needs to put a lot more into the process. As Arnold Jacobs said, it's all Wind and Song.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Luuk ★2017
Date: 2015-02-13 16:59
Maybe there is bad balance in pressure between the left and right side of the reed. Because of a bicycle accident 35 years ago I developed a hard bit of scar tissue at the right side of my lower lip. I have to place the reed to the left of that bit (luckily still somewhere around the middle), otherwise the reed is pressed too much at the right.
It is also thinkable the mouthpiece is not centered on her lower lip, or that her teeth are pressing more at one side than the other.
Regards,
Luuk
Philips Symphonic Band
The Netherlands
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-02-13 19:22
Yes, you know, I like this explanation. I don't (haven't yet) looked inside a student's mouth (don't want to look like a "horse trader"), but clearly reeds squeak when one side binds before another, so an uneven pressure makes sense.
I have a friend who is a very accomplished clarinetist who has an odd bite. She found for herself that just turning the mouthpiece off to one side (about 30 degrees or so) solves the problem quite nicely.
Of course I was going to say that there is TOO much embouchure for the amount of air used but this is a typical student scenario......easily corrected.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2015-02-14 02:54
This can be caused by uneven teeth. Does your student have braces on her teeth, or has she had them in the past? A friends daughter had this problem on oboe, and it vanished completely when the braces were removed. It can also be an unconscious relaxing of the embouchure caused by the momentary discomfort of a sharp tooth against the lower lip.
Tony F.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-02-14 08:24
Is this a recent development or has she always had the problem?
Karl
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-02-14 08:47
I know you said that biting isn't an issue, but based on the recording it sounds to me like she could be biting and not using enough air, and possibly taking in too much mouthpiece. Perhaps her reeds are too hard, causing her to bite and have a stuffy/squeaky sound. You can hear undertones when she goes to the high notes, too, suggesting that her voicing may not be quite right and that the reeds might be too hard.
You can tell if she's biting by putting one of those thick black mouthpiece cushions on her mouthpiece. If it's punctured within a day or two, she's probably biting way too hard. Back when I had biting issues, it was because my reeds were too hard; I eventually moved to some slightly softer reeds and played with a looser embouchure, relying on breath support instead of too-hard reeds in order to produce the tone I want. Biting caused me to play sharp and squeak, and I would literally destroy those mouthpiece cushions within a day or two.
If biting does turn out to be the issue, let me know; having moved away from a biting embouchure relatively recently, I can give you some suggestions for things that helped me get rid of that habit.
Another thing that I noticed is that it always happens in the range from D to F in the staff. Maybe double-check that she's totally covering the holes and that she's pressing down the rings all the way (so that the B natural pad closes.)
Post Edited (2015-02-14 09:08)
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-02-14 09:13
Also, I agree with the above suggestions to try double lip. While I would never be comfortable playing double lip full-time, I've found that playing with double lip for a minute or two every now and then helps me to establish a mental idea of how my single lip embouchure should feel. It's easy to have bad embouchure habits with a single lip embouchure and still sound relatively good; it's much more difficult to have bad double-lip habits and still sound good.
Play with double lip for a minute or two, making sure that you have good tone, pitch, etc. If you don't sound good or you're wildly out of tune, it suggests that you're doing something wrong with your lip pressure or voicing. Once you're sounding good and in tune, then simply move your top lip out from underneath your teeth but keep the all same muscles activated.
Post Edited (2015-02-14 09:18)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-02-14 19:32
Is there any chance that when she breathes out into the clarinet, she's also breathing out through her nose? That style of breathing doesn't come naturally to me, but I have a vague memory of a kid in my grammar school beginning band having this problem. I experimented with a clarinet just now and I got squeaks that way. Plenty of air came out of my lungs, but it didn't go into the mouthpiece where it belonged.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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