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Re: Ligatures

Author: JTJC
Date: 2022-09-25 13:51

I'm sure some major symphony players (to quote) 'may' say differently. It seems major players in the public eye change their equipment, ligatures included, quite frequently. To point to particular players using a particular ligature doesn't really say much. What happened to to last ligature they were seeing playing? The new ligature may to them be better but can their public say they notice any significant difference? So long as the player is happy and they think the ligature is adding something that's great for them.

I can't speak for plating making a difference, side by side or otherwise. However, most of us probably play on mass produced ligatures. Whatever they are plated with I don't think the manufacturing tolerance they're made to is so high that you can't rule out individual difference being responsible for any differences experienced by players. I'd point to the issue I noted with the Opimum plate that left uneven pressure marks across the reed. I'm sure they're not all like that. After all, that plate is stamped metal, not some finely and precisely ground/machined component, matched to a metal band made with equal precision.

I have tried Silverstein. With that I found the metal wire setup was a bit wonky so, I felt, would exert uneven or asymmetrical pressure on the reed. This made it hard to determine whether any differences were due to those issues or the style/design/metal wire quality of the ligature. It seems to me that even expensive ligatures aren't made to particularly high tolerances.

If there was indeed one ligature style and plating that made so much difference to sound wouldn't we all be playing it by now? Yet we're not. All those pros referred to are all playing different ligatures, just like the rest of us.

Personally, I don't have an issue with my sound. Over many decades I've always had complementary comments from top pros and other wind players. I don't think a ligature will make all that much difference to me. I like to try them and I'll use whatever I feel is better, as will we all.

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Ligatures new

alanporter

2022-09-24 05:47