 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Exiawolf
Date: 2014-09-18 06:43
Greetings! Recently out of the blue I've been having problems with my embouchure. Whenever I play, my lower lip slowly starts sliding off due to my lower braces and eventually pinch the reed causing a massive squeak. This problem has always been there, but I fought it by putting more lip over my teeth. After being pushed by my private instructor to use less lip due to it dampening vibrations in the altissimo, this has just pushed it even further. I got so mad today at not only my tone, but also the difficulties I was having in almost every register because of my lower lip. What am I doing wrong? Have any of you ever had this problem before?
PS: I've played my entire clarinet career (4 years) with braces on so I don't know how it feels to play without them.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-09-18 22:47
I have a student who has a similar problem. I've found, just by experimenting, that the most effective remedy comes when I remind her to support the clarinet more with her right thumb - push upward slightly. It's the weight of the clarinet pulling it downward that, IMO, that's the root of the problem. Too little lip can cause the kind of pinching you describe. Too much lip inside your mouth can just get in the way and cause control problems of its own, so overdoing that can be destructive.
I do know players who insist that they support the reed solely with their lips without having their teeth under the bottom lip at all. I can play that way for a very short period of time, but I don't think I could do it as a normal technique. The squeak may be caused more by the closeness of your teeth to the reed with too little lip covering than with the lip itself causing a pinch. It's hard to tell without seeing and hearing you.
Karl
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