Author: jcm499
Date: 2016-03-21 00:13
I started playing Légère about ten years ago because it made switching between Bb and A clarinets in orchestra very easy, and let me have different setups for each horn: more resistance on the Bb and less resistance on the A, for example. After scrutinizing recordings of the orchestra, I switched back to cane (Vandoren 56 Rue Lepic). It seemed the cane reed offered a livelier sound with more highs, especially in the throat tones, which allowed me to “float” over the orchestra better. Comparatively, the Légère seemed sort of dull and muffled in that range. (I thought the same thing about the upper altissimo, but orchestra parts rarely venture there).
Now that I am playing exclusively jazz and pop, I’m back to Légère. The Signature for tenor sax is superb, but on clarinet I’m still using the classic and haven’t tried the Signature yet. In this field, having a cleaner, somewhat less complex tone is totally fine and maybe preferable. What an opera singer prizes as “squillo” is harsh and piercing to the pop listener.
I actually think the difference in feel between cane and synthetic is much greater than the difference in sound, which mistakenly leads players to believe the difference in sound is greater than it is. It’s like the mouthpiece patch: a player might think it drastically alters his tone if he doesn’t realize it just dampens the vibrations he feels through his top teeth!
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The Clarinet BBoard
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