[Dixielandjazz] Clarinet Embouchure - French/Double Lip

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

Thanks for the article - it's very informative but as he said a little 
biased.  The one thing I would agree with him is that biting is a really bad 
thing and that muscle control is a far better.  A biting sound is the thing 
I notice most in clarinet players when they switch to Sax.  I guess that's 
why I think that starting on sax is a better thing because you stand less 
chance of developing that habit than the other way around.  They just sort 
of grab on like snapping turtles.

What they do is thrust the face and muscles forward into sort of a 
bite/pucker.  The tongue is forward and everything very tight.  This is a 
real problem with clarinet players, even very good ones.  That's why I like 
to have a clarinet player learn vibrato so that they draw their teeth away 
from the reed, drop the jaw and rely on muscles rather than teeth.

I did use the French embouchure for awhile back when I was playing Oboe and 
I think it can create more bad habits than it fixes.  Just as in Oboe, 
biting is a killer and that's the first thing that happens when the player 
starts to get tired.  Upper register intonation suffers too.

Another one is horn movement.  Since the clarinet is mainly kept from 
rolling by the right thumb and embouchure  there is a great tendency for the 
clarinet to roll when playing G.  This might and I say might be OK in a 
symphonic setting but we jazzers tend to move when we play from not much to 
swinging the horn around and marching up and down.  Jazzers just wouldn't be 
able to do all of that without incredible practice habits and dedication to 
build cast iron chops and then I think the tendency would be to have the 
horn jumping all over the place in the mouth.

Actual marching is even worse.  One time I was in a parade and my sax strap 
was one of those new soft and kind of springy ones.  The sax jumping up and 
down with every step coupled with the notch in the top of the mouthpiece 
from my teeth made a miserable hot walk in the sun into just plain not a lot 
of fun.  As bad as it was I can't imagine doing it with a French ambusher. 
Then again the French are not noted for their marching bands either.
Larry
St. Louis

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis" <larrys.bands at charter.net>; 
"DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 2:38 PM
Subject: Clarinet Embouchure - French/Double Lip


> Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis at larrys.bands at charter.net wrote:
>
>> You would have to have chops of iron to play French style on a clarinet 
>> or
>> sax.  I would think that embouchure would be very sloppy and incredibly
>> tiring.  I played Oboe for a long time and that basic embouchure does 
>> build
>> some strong chops.
>
> Yes, you do need good chops for it.
>
> The British and the French classical players were quite adept at it. Funny
> story about that. Reginald Kell who was a Double Lip clarinetist, advised
> Benny Goodman to switch to Double Lip when Benny took some lessons from 
> him
> circa 1950s. Benny made the switch.
>
> There is a good read, for clarinet/sax players, about this embouchure at:
>
> http://www.theclarinet.co.uk/articles/doublelip.shtml
>
> and a good read how Kell changed Goodman's embouchere and fingering at
>
> http://www.jazzprofessional.com/interviews/Benny%20Goodman_1.htm
>
> Benny. always the perfectionist, apparently knew he had some deficiencies 
> in
> his playing and so he did something about them.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
>