 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2024-01-25 06:03
I could swear--see if this is your experience too--that practice sessions between days, each done with different reeds, can yield vastly different amounts of saliva in my instrument.
Same for you? Maybe its the works I'm playing. Maybe I'm wrong.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2024-01-25 07:01
The buildup of condensation should correlate quite closely with higher humidity and or colder temperatures in your studio. I assumed that the 40% humidity that was causing my wife and I to zap each other with built up static charges would mean a drier bore. However, the colder indoor temperatures seem to be a dominant factor. Still outdoor Summer concerts with drier, warmer conditions always yield no condensation whatsoever.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2024-01-25 07:06
Only difference I have noticed is that more saliva seems to get under my Legere 2.0s than my VanDoren 2.5s.
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Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
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Author: lydian
Date: 2024-01-25 09:35
Yeah, that’s not saliva. It’s condensation from your breath. It has everything to do with temperature and nothing to do with reeds.
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2024-01-25 09:42
Yes, condensation. Saliva does get on the mouthpiece needless to say, and how much of that gets into the mouthpiece either under the reed or elsewhere-- anyone know?
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2024-01-25 11:13
Yes, actually, thanks for asking.
I did little ad hoc experiment with Hawaiian Punch turning my mouth and all it's contents of saliva a rich red color. I then played my clarinet for twenty minutes or so until soaking wet inside and really drippy at the bell. I then swabbed with a new white handkerchief style swab and noted no discoloration at all........just moisture. Then I used a white paper towel up the bore of the mouthpiece and there was no discoloration at there either. When I dabbed the moisture within the tone chamber of the mouthpiece there was some red color being transferred to the paper towel at the very tip of the bevel (manifesting as a light pink color). I deduced from this that only a very small amount of saliva follows the breath as it moves into the mouthpiece. Sloshing and spitting into a sink was still dramatically red by the way.
I'm sure one could set up a better way to actually measure the amount of saliva that gets to the reed/mouthpiece but I'm pretty convinced that what transfers really only exists as vapor
............Paul Aviles
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Author: marcia
Date: 2024-01-25 20:37
>Only difference I have noticed is that more saliva seems to get under my Legere >2.0s than my VanDoren 2.5s.
Maybe because Legeres are translucent, and VanDorens are not, that you can see it with Legeres and not with the VanDorens.
Just a thought.
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Author: lydian
Date: 2024-01-25 21:44
marcia wrote:
> >Only difference I have noticed is that more saliva seems to
> get under my Legere >2.0s than my VanDoren 2.5s.
>
> Maybe because Legeres are translucent, and VanDorens are not,
> that you can see it with Legeres and not with the VanDorens.
>
> Just a thought.
Exactly. A saturated cane reed isn’t going to absorb any more than a piece of plastic.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2024-01-26 00:27
But the saturated wood WILL expand and probably fill spaces that would not be filled by a straight piece of plastic.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: lydian
Date: 2024-01-26 01:34
Paul Aviles wrote:
> But the saturated wood WILL expand and probably fill spaces
> that would not be filled by a straight piece of plastic.
>
> .............Paul Aviles
>
So you're saying a flat piece of wood the size of a fingernail held tightly against the table will have enough voids to affect the condensation build up in the rest of the clarinet. I would wager that space would be on the order of nanoliters.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2024-01-26 03:15
Wow.........no!!!!!
I must have communicated badly. I refer to the build up of moisture one sees through an almost transparent Legere Signature (of some form or other) reed and the table of the mouthpiece. It was stated that cane reeds don't seem to build up moisture between themselves and mouthpiece tables. I would agree with that statement and as stated above assume the reason is that the natural expansion of the WOOD helps to lock out a direct flow of condensation beneath the reed. With plastic, there are plenty of opportunities for LESS than hermetic seals between the plastic reed and the mouthpiece.
I don't refer to the rest of the horn. That is a matter of 100 degree air from one's body condensing on the walls of the bore which one can assume are less than 100 degrees (give or take a degree of course).
................Paul Aviles
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2024-01-26 05:31
Tom H:
What mouthpiece do you play that has you find such relatively less resistant reeds working for you....not judging...
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2024-01-26 16:43
Why would one person always get more condensation in their instrument than anyone else in the section?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2024-01-26 17:22
Swabbing
But if you haven't looked behind you, there is a man made lake of condensation in front of the trombones - not for the squeamish.
................Paul Aviles
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Author: Hunter_100
Date: 2024-01-26 19:27
I think some people just notice the condensation more than others because it accumulates in problematic places on their instrument. I rarely have problems with this but the player next to me is always fighting with water in her C# tonehole, it looks very frustrating and she swabs a lot to try to prevent it. Is her instrument wetter than mine? I doubt it.
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