Author: mmichel
Date: 2021-02-11 04:18
kdk wrote:
> To tell the truth, I've never encountered a problem in a
> student who had the alignment you describe. I assume that it
> isn't because I've never taught a student like that, but rather
> that they had found a way to position things in a way that
> didn't interfere. There is some separation between the upper
> and lower teeth where the mouthpiece fits, and it may be that
> that's enough possibly to neutralize or reduce the effect of
> the vertical alignment.
>
> So, I guess the answer from my experience is that I didn't have
> to resolve problems like that - the students had managed it
> before I met them. But I haven't taught complete beginners,
> with one specific exception, for a very long time. On the other
> side of the coin, I guess that indicates that the problem can
> be resolved without having the clarinet come straight out.
Right. However, if you're not teaching complete beginners, then another possibility is self-selection. As I mentioned above, underbites are pretty uncommon in the population anyway, and I'd imagine that if it contributed to problems in playing clarinet, its sufferers would be less likely to continue on for very long. In other words, the prevalence of underbite in experienced clarinet players is likely vanishingly small (which, I suppose, is why it's been difficult to find information on this topic).
> You may be able to pull your bottom jaw back, away from the
> mouthpiece, to bring the bottom teeth more even with the top.
I don't know whether you've tried this, but I find it extremely difficult to pull back my jaw at all from my "at rest" biting position. I think this is just normal physiology. Thrusting the lower jaw forward is easy (I can achieve about an inch of foward thrust), but pulling it back is physiologically impossible for me.
> A thicker-beaked mouthpiece might help by increasing the vertical
> separation slightly. The mouthpiece angle is very much related
> to the oral structure even when the bottom teeth are inside the
> top ones, and players find the most comfortable way to
> accommodate their own physical idiosyncrasies. You might
> experiment with double-lip to see if it can negate any of the
> alignment issue.
>
> An important point is not to let what you're used to feeling
> with a sax mouthpiece block you from trying different solutions
> involving different sensations with a clarinet.
Thanks. I'm sure I have some bad habits (these are what I'm trying to correct), but I'm certainly not trying to copy my saxophone embouchure at all. There's a night and day difference between my embouchures on soprano clarinet and soprano saxophone, for example.
Post Edited (2021-02-11 04:20)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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