Author: SecondTry
Date: 2021-09-24 20:40
Hi Jen:
> The thing is, I like double lip, because it stops me biting
another thing that IMHO helps stop biting is involving the mouth muscles responsible for putting inward pressure from the sides. This will help counteract the up and down force that you've had a lifetime to develop vis a vis....a well known process we all engage in known as...eating (lol). It has enormous application for either embouchure type IMHO.
https://www.thewind-o.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4d2gpRysZY
> and gives me the nice tone, and helps a huge amount with crossing
> the break legato. On the other hand, it gets really crazy when
> I try to play this progression, with Bb in the middle:
>
> ![[A5]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/a5.gif) ![[Bb5]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/bb5.gif) ![[C6]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/c6.gif)
> That's because when I get to the top C, I have only my left
> thumb holding the clarinet and the thumb isn't pressing the
> instrument against my top teeth, so the instrument moves up,
> the thumb hole fails to close, and the note fails to sound
> properly.
Sure. I recommend this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CZHDKVM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It's 1" (2.54cm) wide floral tape. I roll out about a 12"/30cm length and cut it with a scissor. I then fold it over on itself enough times until its about square.
I then do one final fold and stick it over my top front two teeth and let it conform.
My last one of these devices lasted me about 3 weeks. Please note that I failed initially, using floral tape that wasn't wide enough to cover both front teeth. This 1"/2.5cm stuff though is IMHO wide enough for most people.
Another solution, albeit for slowly played notes like those you've described, is to counterbalance the upward pressure you describe with the pinkies as described in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTnEqmd52mg
Perhaps Ken Lagace can confirm this, having studied with Kal Opperman, but I'm to understand that Mr. Opperman desired his students to keep their pinkies on their respective keys, depressed or not, to counterbalance clarinet roll and upward pressure. I find this very hard to do. To point, I seem to remember reading in the book about Mr. Opperman that he desired the fingers to work independently. Well, this old timer can't move his ring fingers without some pinky coming along with it, and the idea of a ring finger "up" but a pinky down---that might take a lot of work for me. 
>
> So I tried putting my top teeth back on the mp, and then I was
> biting. Then I wondered if I could stop the biting by taking my
> bottom teeth off the mp. This was me trying the advice that Ken
> Lagace gave, but lifting the lower teeth rather than the upper
> ones.
During a practice session I will find myself transitioning after some time to and from double to single lip embouchure to voice higher notes, especially in key--even mid passage. The floral tape helps with the discomfort but there's also the far less painful muscle fatigue I'm experiencing developing the muscles over time needed for sustained double lip play.
Perhaps I should clarify. Double lip presents two forms of discomfort for me. The far more painful, addressed with cushioning like floral tape is the front teeth digging into the top inner gums--my lacking the callusing that years of single lip play have brought to my inner lower gums. The second discomfort is plain old muscle fatigue from double lip play that is relieved with resting for as little as for 15 seconds, etc., and is improving over time.
>
> I just used my lip to brace the reed, instead of my teeth,
> which I think is the whole point of what I'm meant to be doing,
> at least as all the books say it. That really forced my muscles
> to engage, but in a totally different way from when I do double
> lip.
I think--I might be wrong, that you are responding to acute pain from beginning the trials and tribulations of double lip play that the floral tape, or something similar will help alleviate.
(I think I read somewhere that Richard Stoltzman, perhaps one of Mr. Opperman's best known students, uses the stuff on both his upper and lower front teeth.)
Without this stuff, or some similar cushion I would be lost. I can tell you (which is why I call this thread Chapter 2) that the pain I experience now is mostly just muscle fatigue from adopting the new muscles involved in double lip play--not the pain that has me "see stars" from my top front teeth stabbing into my upper inner gums. Maybe some day I will develop the callusing on my upper gums that years of play has caused to my lower gums, but not for the foreseeable future.
I am at a stage where I don't need to rest the clarinet on my knee but not at a stage where I can play with any degree of duration that I can when using a single lip embouchure.
>
> I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it feels as though
> I'm doing what people are suggesting, when they say to use
> double lip practise to strengthen single lip techniqiue. I
> wondered if I could ask what you think?
My thoughts on this: If a player doesn't ultimately adopt--or even had zero intention on ever adopting double lip play as they experiment with it, I think it worthy to try. First off, when I get a sound I like with double lip embouchure I try my best to mimic it with single lip shortly thereafter using Mr. Dean's 5C technique. I concentrate on opening the upper palate, and squeezing my mouth from the sides to form the "rubber band" that should be the embouchure, rather than the "vice grip."
http://www.clarinetmike.com/docs/Michael_Dean_Clinic_Handouts.pdf
I am in Mr. Morales camp on double lip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZUOfN-wQEY
Second, double lip forces the player to not bang on the keys--it's too painful on the mouth. And regardless of what embouchure you end up with, not pressing harder on keys than needed is IMHO the surest way of being able to progress to more finger difficult passages over time. The beautiful irony of clarinet is that the passages that would mentally most tense us up, are the ones we are most likely to play correctly when we are "not tense." Please note that I deliberately don't use the description "relaxed" (over "not tense") here because it connotes a state of lack of mental concentration to some readers. We're concentrating here, we're aware, we're just not bogged down with anxiety.
>
> I just came back to playing today after a long post-covid
> break, so I'm looking at the whole thing through fresh eyes,
> which I think perhaps is helpful for me.
I've often felt that time away from the clarinet is a balance between loss of technique and gain of perspective. I hope some of what I've said above, not born of expertise, but the school of hard knocks helps you in your journey too.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jen
>
>
> Post Edited (2021-09-24 16:50)
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