 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2024-08-12 00:22
Has anyone every written something linkable that explains what affect certain mouthpieces changes tend to have on their qualities.
Sure: the player controls the sound, but for example, I've heard that widening the rails tends to cover the sound more (e.g. Vandoren M30D). Let me see if I can list as many attributes about a mouthpiece as possible for which comments on their change effecting sound can be discussed:
* material
* tip opening
* rail curvature
* rail thickness
* baffle/internals (on which probably its own novel could be written)
Feel free to add attributes or the effect of changes to those listed, all else equal, on sound.
:)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2024-08-12 06:11
SecondTry wrote:
> Let me see if I can list as many
> attributes about a mouthpiece as possible for which comments on
> their change effecting sound can be discussed:
>
> * material
> * tip opening
> * rail curvature
> * rail thickness
> * baffle/internals (on which probably its own novel could be
> written)
You may have thought of them as included in "baffle/internals," but the throat size and shape and the bore size beyond the throat will have an influence.
Karl
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Author: paulyb
Date: 2024-08-12 10:26
Is this the kind of thing you're looking for? It's much more than just "nomenclature" (but is a little verbose perhaps).
https://www.clarinetmouthpiece.com/mouthpiece-nomenclature-guide
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Author: Mojo
Date: 2024-08-12 16:58
The content in Ben’s article is better than most. The headings are a little strange: Clarinet 1a, 2, 4…
MojoMP.com
Mojo Mouthpiece Work LLC
MojoMouthpieceWork@yahoo.com
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Author: lydian
Date: 2024-08-12 19:11
In my experience, material makes no difference. Baffle acts like a treble knob. Tip opening affects the max possible volume but also turns down the treble and requires more air to make a sound as you go more open. Also makes the pitch more flexible. Facing length and rail thickness get kind of tricky. I find it best not to mess with those much or you'll end up with squeaks and timbre issues. That's my take from a player's perspective.
Clarinet seems to have a much tighter range of playable geometries than something like sax. A good, middle of the road design on clarinet tends to give the best overall results for me at least. Maybe if I were a better player I could handle the extremes.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2024-08-12 19:40
I find the tip rail thickness and profile have an effect on resistance and ease of playing. I've improved several resistant mouthpices by thinning the tip rail.
Tony F.
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2024-08-13 05:14
Tony F wrote:
> I find the tip rail thickness and profile have an effect on
> resistance and ease of playing. I've improved several resistant
> mouthpices by thinning the tip rail.
>
I'm confused Tony. At the tip of the mouthpiece, the reed and rails are separated by some degree of distance, correct? Given this, why would rail thickness (I'm
not saying it wouldn't, I'm saying I don't understand) influence play?
Were you referring to a place near the tip where the reed and rails might still be in contact?
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Author: lydian
Date: 2024-08-13 06:06
But there is zero distance between reed and rails several hundred times per second. Surely there is some effect from wide rails vs thin. Otherwise rails could be arbitrarily thick up to half the width of the mouthpiece. I'm thinking thick rails effectively make the reed narrower, hence harder and more resistant as described.
Post Edited (2024-08-13 06:26)
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Author: Dan Shusta
Date: 2024-08-13 08:05
Concerning thick tip rails...playing with a thick or wide tip rail is the same thing as playing with a very thin tip rail with the tip of the reed extending beyond the tip wherein the distance from the reed tip to the inside edge of the tip rail is equal to the width of the original wide rail tip. Result...increased resistance due to the fact that the back pressure wave is hitting against a thicker part of the reed.
Now as to wide side rails...as you increase the thickness of the side rails, this narrows the distance between the rails which in turn means that less back pressure is available to push the reed away from the facing. Yes, there is a spring like effect involved, however, a thinner side rail would simply provide more back pressure against the reed. The result of this would be reduced resistance.
Just my analytical opinions...
p.s. Here is what Tom Ridenour has to say about thick side rails (skip to page 3):
https://lindseybresourcefile.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/7/5/13753093/article-understanding_clarinet_mouthpiece_facings.pdf
p.p.s. Karl, when you wrote: "You may have thought of them as included in "baffle/internals," but the throat size and shape and the bore size beyond the throat will have an influence", I remembered what a SYOS clarinet mouthpiece page had to say about different throat chamber shapes. Here it is:
https://syos.co/en-us/blogs/news/all-about-the-clarinet-mouthpiece-s-chamber?_pos=3&_psq=clarinet+mouthpiece+design+differences&_ss=e&_v=1.0
Post Edited (2024-08-13 08:47)
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Author: Mojo
Date: 2024-08-13 18:21
Thin tip rails sometime articulate a little quicker but can also squeak easier. When thinned from the inside, they can sound brighter if the baffle is just rolled over to blend it in.
Larger tip openings can articulate a bit slower. On bass clarinet you might like the bigger sound of going larger but find out later some technical musical segments are harder to play. Not that this ever happened to me….
MojoMP.com
Mojo Mouthpiece Work LLC
MojoMouthpieceWork@yahoo.com
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2024-08-13 19:07
Hi All,
Trying to determine what "this mouthpiece change does" will not be an easy or a reliable answer. There are too many variables that need to be controlled (or accounted) for in this situation.
One must find out what each variable "does" and then test various combinations of them. Quantitative data will be needed to test each null hypothesis; that will be hard to come by with this experiment.
What I see in most of the posts above is that qualitative data abounds. You could use some non-parametric statistical test but that only works with a research hypothesis rather than a null.
Interesting conundrum but...
Hank
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2024-08-14 01:05
Hank Lehrer wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Trying to determine what "this mouthpiece change does" will not
> be an easy or a reliable answer. There are too many variables
> that need to be controlled (or accounted) for in this
> situation.
>
> One must find out what each variable "does" and then test
> various combinations of them. Quantitative data will be needed
> to test each null hypothesis; that will be hard to come by
> with this experiment.
>
> What I see in most of the posts above is that qualitative data
> abounds. You could use some non-parametric statistical test but
> that only works with a research hypothesis rather than a null.
>
>
> Interesting conundrum but...
>
> Hank
You're so correct. I should have said, "holding all else equal, what does this one change do to effect the mouthpiece experience for most players..."
It is what I meant.
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2024-08-14 01:08
lydian wrote:
> But there is zero distance between reed and rails several
> hundred times per second. Surely there is some effect from wide
> rails vs thin. Otherwise rails could be arbitrarily thick up to
> half the width of the mouthpiece. I'm thinking thick rails
> effectively make the reed narrower, hence harder and more
> resistant as described.
>
>
> Post Edited (2024-08-13 06:26)
Oh, ok. I think what you're saying, and if so something I didn't realize, is that that tip opening, while the mouthpiece sits untouched, is one that is closed however many times a second during the vibratory process of a player's pulmonary energy causing that reed to vibrate.
Live and learn.
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2024-08-14 01:12
Dan Shusta wrote:
> Concerning thick tip rails...playing with a thick or wide tip
> rail is the same thing as playing with a very thin tip rail
> with the tip of the reed extending beyond the tip wherein the
> distance from the reed tip to the inside edge of the tip rail
> is equal to the width of the original wide rail tip.
> Result...increased resistance due to the fact that the back
> pressure wave is hitting against a thicker part of the reed.
>
>.....
Dan, I think you have something worthy to say but read ("red") it several times though I did, I could grasp it; we'll blame it on me.
But perhaps if I couldn't get this, others couldn't either. 
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Author: Dan Shusta
Date: 2024-08-14 04:55
SecondTry,
How about I exaggerate it a little...
Try putting your reed on your mouthpiece with the reed tip around 1/4" beyond the mouthpiece tip rail.
Blow on it and tell me how it plays.
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2024-08-14 16:32
Dan Shusta wrote:
> SecondTry,
>
> How about I exaggerate it a little...
>
> Try putting your reed on your mouthpiece with the reed tip
> around 1/4" beyond the mouthpiece tip rail.
>
> Blow on it and tell me how it plays.
Got it now. Thanks.
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Author: Julian ibiza
Date: 2024-08-15 12:30
I can't seem to figure out how to attach the link from my iPhone ( I'm on holiday),
But I found this short video on YouTube that's pretty mind blowing.
" ARCS presents See the movement of a clarinet reed in slow motion."
Julian Griffiths
Tel. 34 696 798 853
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Author: Luuk ★2017
Date: 2024-08-15 17:51
Hmm. The video shows something that might not be what happens when playing clarinet. The dampening effect of the embouchure is not taken into account; this might lead to a totally different behavior.
Also, the presenter states that the reed swings (left corner up, right corner down and vice versa). This might be the case, but is not evident from the video.
I wouldn't pay too much attention to this demonstration.
Regards,
Luuk
Philips Symphonic Band
The Netherlands
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Author: Dan Shusta
Date: 2024-08-15 23:33
IMHO, It's hard for me to even believe that this fellow put up this video.
First of all, the baffle near the tip (and probably all the way down to the throat) is "not flat" but rather "slightly concave" going across the baffle. I just now cut out a thin, stiff piece of cardboard and placed it across the baffles near the tip of 2 mouthpieces that I have. One of them is a hard rubber Riffault I bought from sonicbang and the other is a cheap, plastic MSO from China. Both of them clearly showed the concavity across the baffle.
This is the reason refacers measure the tip opening "in the middle" of the mouthpiece and not at the edges.
So, what does this mean? To me it means that the reed is closer to the baffle at the edges than at the middle. Therefore the suction effect is greater at the edges than in the middle. It doesn't surprise me at all that the edges of the reed vibrated so vividly while nothing happened in the middle.
JMO
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Author: lydian
Date: 2024-08-16 01:57
Fascinating. I had no idea reeds vibrated that way. I always assumed it was up and down, not side to side. I'll definitely focus on balancing more when I have a bad reed.
But it is more complicated. You can see in this video that the middle does indeed vibrate a lot and that the embouchure constrains the sides.
https://youtu.be/50-aLA4umj4
Post Edited (2024-08-16 02:04)
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The Clarinet Pages
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