Hi Alan,
I raised this question with my teacher recently, and he explained that I simply need to practice more to strengthen my embouchure because the lacerations come when the embouchure tires, and you start using your teeth & jaw to support your flagging embouchure.
One tip he gave me to get a bit more time before the pain begins was to offer up more flesh to the reed, in other words push your lip out and up as if you were a 6 year old pouting. He was keen to point out to me that it was more of a band-aid solution to maybe get you to the end of piece instead of stopping, and that the only real solution is more frequent practice sessions.
Hope this helps
T.
Absolutely - I posted this thread a while ago on the old BR and posted it again here as I thought the answers might help others. You are absolutely right Tony. Another thing that I might have posted on a different thread at the time would be "My tone is very weak and flat and has no colour to it - can anyone help?" Since then I have tried to find every piece of information in books and on the web on how to improve my embouchure and more importantly my overall tone. Well it turns out that overuse of the jaw and bottom teeth IS compensation for a week embouchure, not only that it really stifles the reed and gives a weak tone and no partials (harmonics).
After a bit of adjustment (especially with the muscles at the corners of the mouth), long tones and mouthpiece only practice the pressure has almost entirely come off the lower teeth area. The lower teeth seem to just give gentle support to the lower lip which now can twitch ever so slightly and subconsciously to alter the reed vibration.
From the above it may sound like I have discovered everything, but no not at all, still loads and loads of work to do (probably 20-30 years worth) but at least I feel that I am more on the right track and have something positive to work on.
Thanks for your comments, if anyone can add more on how to improve tone it could very valuable.
Cheers,
Al
