Author: pliscapoivre
Date: 2011-08-07 16:50
Thanks again, especially for the link, Robin. Your comments are really brilliant. I've read on your site but hadn't found this bit. What you say about the shape becoming wider, essentially, if one folds after shaping rather than before makes perfect sense. I will keep this in mind when trying the shaping machine.
Well, Howard, I'm just getting started in Europe. My first public performance is in a few weeks. It's been very hard making adjustments and not performing after 10 years of an active career. Yes, I have a new AM model. Mr. Frank changed the half-hole for me to a deeper, American one as I was getting some weird squeaks at first with certain slurs.
In terms of American style playing in Europe, yes, it's not easy -- especially in Germany, and especially in Berlin! However, things are opening up a bit: one well-known player here is Washington Barella, and he uses an Innoledy gouge and American reeds. One of my big revelations came after Albrecht Mayer suggested a high C# fingering to me (the regular one, but without the low C key). He commented that the throat must be very relaxed in order for it to be in tune. I worked on it for a couple of days and then thought it was kind of ridiculous to play one note with an open throat when all the others fell out of tune that way. Well, with time I decided to just try opening up all the time. It was a bit scary at first, but I realize now that the throat muscles have everything to do with sound both because of the shape of the resonance chamber (a.k.a. mouth) and because it seems to change my embouchure a bit. Remarkably, when I play with the throat relaxed, the sound at once becomes soloistic and -- European! (I'm still usually using my old C# fingering, though now I'm a lot more flexible.)
So, yes, with the 46 staples and the new Moennig, I need to get the shape just right. Of course, we know too that the length at which we tie will affect things.
By the way, I don't know what the etiquette is for a thread that morphs. Perhaps my comments about the throat, etc. belong in a separate post. If so, sorry about that.
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