 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2023-06-10 06:42
Sure, it's going to vary from player to player: that's even if our practice regiment and setup were the same, which of course it's anything but.
I'm a long time single lip player. I have no problem with multi-hour practice sessions with this embouchure.
This isn't to say I wiz thru the Nielsen. Both technical ability and physical exhaustion would catch up with this soon to be 60 year old man quickly--but I guess my point is that it isn't my embouchure that would give out before my breath/wind would.
A couple of months ago I started the process of moving to double lip play. I guess I like the harmonics better with the embouchure even if I'm the only one that hears the difference between my single and double lip play.
Perhaps influenced by a book about Kal Opperman (who, for all he knew about play, held opinions that differed from other great pedagogues and nobody is the last word) and videos by Tom Ridenour (one if his disciples), I've worked up to the point where I usually need no upper teeth protection** before muscle fatigue, not pain, causes me to revert back to single lip in about 1/2 hour pf practice that always starts out with double lip.
I'm sure practice with more upper altissimo notes causes fatigue faster, remembering to push the clarinet into the mouth with the right thumb ever so more for these high notes.
I like what double lip has to offer for either embouchure, in how it forces the player to approach the instrument with a degree of gentleness, from mouth to fingers. I'm just wondering, for those who made the transition, how long it took.
** sometimes I do put some form of a guard between the front of my top front teeth and the inside gums. This guard prevents my superior labial frenulum (that gathering of flesh inside the top center gums) from getting lodged between my top two teeth, which are not distanced apart, when I break double lip embouchure.)
TIA
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Author: pukalo
Date: 2023-06-10 12:36
I was the opposite - for years I played double lip, but eventually switched to single lip, and I can't go back after that.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2023-06-10 17:39
I flirted with double lip for two years in college. I think most big transitions (a few years later made a fully committed leap to Oehler system horns) take about six months to get some competency and a full year to "settle in." Of course I was quite the biter back then and reverted back to single lip due to sheer discomfort. If you have a reasonable embouchure, jumping back and forth should be just stupid easy and it's only a matter of whether one suits you better. Stability wins out for me every time.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2023-06-10 19:24
I made the change as a 20-something year-old. As I've described here in past threads, it was meant by my teacher to be a temporary approach to stop a biting problem I had developed. I think I did go back and forth for awhile. I also from the beginning allowed myself the heresy of resting the clarinet bell on my knee.
It's important, if you use your knee (or a strap) for help in supporting the instrument, that you don't let the clarinet sink lower than it is when you are fully supporting with your right hand. The instrument can start to slide lower and the mouthpiece then begins to slide out of your mouth, reducing the firmness of your control around the mouthpiece (firm embouchure grip on the mouthpiece is one of the things Opperman seems to have emphasized). That's one reason for pushing the clarinet into your mouth with your thumb.
Your fatigue could be caused by just applying more firmness - embouchure pressure around the mouthpiece - than you really need. The mantra among most of the single lip players I studied with was to use only as much pressure as necessary and no more. If you reach a point of feeling in control of your mouthpiece and the reed with double lip, that's probably firm enough. If you try to go beyond that (if some is good, more is better) and it's not producing an increased benefit in terms of the sound you hear and the response you get when you articulate, the extra effort is wasted and probably only contributing to fatigue.
If your embouchure has good control over the reed, I'm not sure that you'd need to push the instrument into your mouth more for altissimo notes. See what happens if, once you've established control through the clarion register, you just keep everything as it is above C6. Of course, there's the usual caveat that you need to be playing up there on a balanced reed of the right strength (doesn't close but responds cleanly) and you aren't reducing the strength of your air stream (often a reaction to subconscious fear that the notes won't respond). Try to keep everything the same from one register to the next - easier said than done - without adding extra effort and see what results.
Karl
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2023-06-10 21:00
Hi SecondTry,
I'm doing this transition at the moment and I think the time it takes to adapt probably varies enormously based on the strength of the person and how much previous training they've done.
It might perhaps be like training for a marathon - I mean it probably depends if we naturally have the physique of a long distance runner, and if we have been training for something else in the past.
I've started from nothing really, because I lost a lot of embouchure strength with the first covid infection. However, I'm finding that the iQoro device that I mentioned on another thread is increasing my embouchure strength massively faster than just playing the clarinet would. That might be worth thinking about if you want to accelerate the process.
After three weeks, I haven't managed to move up a reed strength yet, but I have much much better control of the reed now, and my tone is much better I think. I still have to stop after a relatively short time though.
Jen
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2023-06-10 22:58
For me the stability issue with double lip was side to side. That is, the clarinet tended to turn slightly left or right depending on what keys I was hitting. The rock steady single lip just takes that out of the equation.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2023-06-10 23:25
Hi Paul,
Yes the rotation issue was a problem for me too. I switched to a kooiman thumb rest and that solved it for me.
Jen
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Author: Ed
Date: 2023-06-11 01:04
I don't recall how long it took for me to switch a number of years ago. There were a number of reasons that it was a positive change for me. I did not have issues with stability, but that may depend on the player and the structure of one's embouchure. One thing I would suggest is to play on the lightest reed that you feel comfortable with. That will keep you from biting or fatiguing the embouchure too soon. I recall friends in college who had studied with Opperman. The regiment that he had them follow was to gradually increase playing time with breaks in between over the course of weeks. (5 minutes on-5 minutes off, 10 on-5 off, etc)
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