With all i am

Saturday, January 6, 2007

hello all,

I've decided to start a blog on clarinet playing and techniques =)

In my opinion, i feel that the most important techniques of playing is the embroche.
actually, it isn't even a technique, its an aspect of playing the clarinet. its as important as breathing and as important as blowing out your air.

there's no correct embroche, only guidelines for a correct embrochue.a fellow clarinetist of mine once said ' there're only guidelines for correct techniques, no definition of correct techniques.' that statement is pretty controversial and i believe that most clarinetist, wind players and musicians of all sorts would disagree with it.

in my opinion, i feel that techniques are correct as long as the player feels comfortable playing the instrument, and the output ( sound ) is nice and enjoyable to listen to, after all. playing an instrument is all about enjoying music isn't it?

firstly - for embroche, the lower lips should be tight and hard when in play. the lower lips should form
a semi-arc around the reed and pressure should not be stressed upon that area. the side of your lips should be taking majority pressure and the top and bottom of your lips should be taking negligible strength and tension. thus, the right and left side of your mouth should be pressing on the sides of the clarinet mouthpiece while the top and bottom of your lips should be just acting as hold.
thats what i feel about embroche, many good clarinetist that i have come across believe that this is the right guidelines for embroche =)

this is my first post and i hope clarinetist out there would comment on it =) i would love to learn more

7:40 PM