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Re: Do ligatures really matter at all?

Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2016-05-17 18:36

The reed and air column form a vibrating system. With any vibrating system, the locations and stiffness of the mounting point(s) of the vibrating elements have a significant effect on the modes (wavelengths) of vibration and the amount of damping of each of those modes. The length of the lay (curved portion of the mouthpiece facing) with respect to where the ligature mounting points are, also has an effect.

To that extent, a particular ligature can affect how a particular reed works on a particular mouthpiece (for a particular player, whose embouchure position and force also affect the vibrating system). Even worse, a particular mouthpiece/reed/ligature combination may perform well on some notes of the instrument but poorly on others.

As usual with musical instrument acoustics, it's neither simple nor intuitive. A ligature that works well with one reed on one mouthpiece may not work so well with a different reed on the same mouthpiece, or any reed on another mouthpiece, etc. That's why we're constantly fooling around with ligatures. On the bright side, as long as the ligature is not set so far forward that it's actually forcing the reed down on the curved facing ("choking" the reed as Nitai described), most ligatures should work reasonably well.

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Do ligatures really matter at all? new

smk

2016-05-17 05:53

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

kdk

2016-05-17 06:07

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

WhitePlainsDave

2016-05-17 06:07

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

BartHx

2016-05-17 06:38

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

Ken Shaw

2016-05-17 06:50

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

clarnibass

2016-05-17 08:58

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

nron

2016-05-17 09:39

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

Tony F

2016-05-17 10:25

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

nron

2016-05-17 10:50

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

Chris P

2016-05-17 14:33

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

David Spiegelthal

2016-05-17 18:36

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

Mojo

2016-05-17 19:05

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

fskelley

2016-05-17 19:12

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-17 20:19

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

Riley-NZL

2016-05-18 00:59

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

WhitePlainsDave

2016-05-18 01:05

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

bassclarinet101

2016-05-18 03:53

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

derf5585

2016-05-18 06:37

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

Paul Aviles

2016-05-18 01:20

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

smk

2016-05-18 02:55

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-18 03:28

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

sfalexi

2016-05-18 06:13

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

sfalexi

2016-05-18 06:46

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-19 00:39

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

jrain54

2016-05-19 04:05

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

sfalexi

2016-05-21 06:14

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-21 08:47

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-21 19:50

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-22 09:11

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-25 03:41

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-25 05:05

Re: Do ligatures really matter at all? new

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2016-05-27 05:52

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2016-05-27 12:04

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2016-05-30 01:21

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