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Simple question about embouchure technique

Lets see if anyone owns up to trying to stick it in the nose! Once the thought is in and the wine takes effect the little light goes on later!! "Wonder if it would work" Then comes the embarrassing moment at A&E well i read on this website you could improve your tone if you ******
jim knight said:
Fair enough...

I get some fine wine to spare my blushes...(it's still wrong though) >:)

To be totally honest if it sounds really killing you could play it through your nose and I wouldn't care. There is no correct way to do anything. Apart from maybe sushi. And operating a car using only thought is tricky though they're working on that....

I'm off to lurk now....
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Jim, Hi, i,m not going to mix it with a seasoned pro such as yourself as that would be just plain silly....as you obviously know what your talking about and have probably been playing longer than most of us here put together!

It's just that, from day one i have always used the now frowned upon double lip as i didn't know there was a right or indeed wrong way to go about things.

A little while ago this subject was brought up so i swapped to the teeth on top way, i found it very hard work even though i stuck at it for several months, my tone went from something "i thought was good" to something that i knew sounded really crap!
It wasn't the fact that my teeth were on the top that bothered me, as it can be very irritating to most people, it was that, well i just didn't sound like "me" any more and i couldn't play for very long without getting fatigue and having to stop.

The only improvement i found was i got a much nicer, and deeper vibrato but apart from that it really didn't work for me and i reverted back to the double lip, i'le also add that my tuning is fine and i can play up into the altisimo range, so maybe i'm the exception to the rule?


Also and i think Kev mentioned it in his earlier post, is that it's easy to loose the muscle strength if you don't play that regular using this technique, i've been working away recently and at one point was away from the sax for two weeks, when i got back to playing my tone sounded very thin with nothing there and after a few days it just returned to what it was but i do need to keep it up.


I heard somewere that Coltrane used the double lip, and as i've said before, if it was good enough for him...well.
 
Okay I've just been and tried double lip and it bloomin hurts!! :shocked: tried not to bite but gravity is against you! Not a great difference in tone as far as I could tell......:confused:
 
Fraser Jarvis said:
I heard somewere that Coltrane used the double lip, and as i've said before, if it was good enough for him...well.
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People keep quoting this and never actually remembering where they heard it. ISTR after much looking around that he used a double lip embouchure briefly when he had tooth trouble towards the end of his career/life.

Another pro that uses double lip (at least he did when I knew him - a few years ago now) is Alistair Parnell.
 
Are there any oboe players that use a saxophone type embouchure - or would they just be chucked out of the orchestra for being silly?

I have to say I have always used two lips when playing a wind instrument, and will probably only use a curled in lip embouchure if ever all my teeth fall out............................:shocked:;}
 
Fraser-if it works for you that's all good and please-mix away! Lively debate is important methinks. Oh and can I have your King alto please? Thanks. Most kind...
I think this is close to my heart as I stated out double lip and no-one really pointed out what I was doing. I couldn't get the sound I wanted playing like that so I changed over which took about a year of swapping backwards and forwards (it was a long time ago now). It all depends on what sound you're after. I think Nick is right about Coltrane as well-it was much later.
To be honest my embouchure is a bit odd anyway as half of one of my front teeth is plastic which means I play on one tooth as it were. So what do I know?
You can see it's a bit sketchy here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M_FIMk6BII
Solo is at 2:20ish
 
Excellent stuff, Jim! Great choice of Ligature too..... Do feel free to pop over for a lurk during the Festive Season. As you play with a "One-Tooth, Two Curled Lip Embouchure do you have to use special Mouthpiece Patches...........................?! ;}

Have a Cool Yule
Tom:thumb:
 
jim knight said:
Fraser-if it works for you that's all good and please-mix away! Lively debate is important methinks. Oh and can I have your King alto please? Thanks. Most kind...
I think this is close to my heart as I stated out double lip and no-one really pointed out what I was doing. I couldn't get the sound I wanted playing like that so I changed over which took about a year of swapping backwards and forwards (it was a long time ago now). It all depends on what sound you're after. I think Nick is right about Coltrane as well-it was much later.
To be honest my embouchure is a bit odd anyway as half of one of my front teeth is plastic which means I play on one tooth as it were. So what do I know?
You can see it's a bit sketchy here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M_FIMk6BII
Solo is at 2:20ish
Click to expand...

Enjoyed that thanks Jim :)

I do think it's an ever evolving process (not that I plan to play double lip!) but I started out bottom lip rolled over and ended up really sore, so I changed to lip out and although for a couple of weeks it sounded like I had the shakes ;} eventually my muscles strengthened and all has reasonably well ever since.

I get very worried about my front teeth - one is a bit loose but my dentist keeps telling me it's fine but I'm convinced it's gonna fall out :shocked:
 
John Coltrane's later double embouchure was as a result of chronic dental pain in his loose top teeth not for any other reason for sound production.
 
OK, time for me to eat my words AND some humble pie regarding my recent enthusiasm for the double lip or Clarinet embouchure that i have been using from day one, firstly i don't gig so i play in the comfort of my own home so don't have to keep on going, maybe do something else for a while, stop to make a cup of tea etc etc, so it's always felt right for me......up until about a week ago whilst out jamming with another forum member, well feeling obliged to keep going without stopping the pain started to set in and soon became unbearable, i could feel my bottom lip curling further and further inward, top lip trembling like crazy tone all over the place, **** never again, the next morning my top lip really hurt with quite a large lump in the middle of it, so against everything I've ever said i switched over to the teeth on top method but now find one front tooth is slightly longer than the other so only one tooth is actually on the bite plate, i have tried twisting the mouthpiece to one side to compensate for this but it doesn't seem to work, i guess all i can do is wait for the longer one to bore through the bite plate to even things up.

Interestingly the next morning while out walking the dogs i started thinking about the embouchure and had a quick look at the dog whistle, and guess what, teeth marks all over the top of it! i never noticed before that i have been for years blowing it using the teeth on top embouchure, tried blowing it double lip and couldn't!!
So am in the change over at the moment, hope the actual tone improves as it sounds very thin and buzzy at the moment, altisimo's gone...but the main thing is i can play for extended periods without any pain, so i guess Jim Knight was right, Fraser was wrong!
 
I haven't played double lip but do wonder if some of the perception of difference in tone (thin and buzzy) could actually be due to the way that the vibrations are transmitted 'internally' to you as a player, i.e via the teeth rather than softer lip Fraser?
 
Filton said:
I haven't played double lip but do wonder if some of the perception of difference in tone (thin and buzzy) could actually be due to the way that the vibrations are transmitted 'internally' to you as a player, i.e via the teeth rather than softer lip Fraser?
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Yeah i guess its my perception of having my teeth, or rather tooth! buzzing about on top of the bite plate that maybe emphasizing the newly found buzzyness, i really don't know but it seems that way...
 
Fraser Jarvis said:
... so against everything I've ever said i switched over to the teeth on top method but now find one front tooth is slightly longer than the other so only one tooth is actually on the bite plate, i have tried twisting the mouthpiece to one side to compensate for this but it doesn't seem to work, i guess all i can do is wait for the longer one to bore through the bite plate to even things up.
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My two front teeth are uneven and when I first learnt to play the longest one hurt. So I started using 0.9mm mouthpiece cushions. After a while I switched to a thinner 0.3mm and I can have those on for months with no marks on it. Since you've switched to a new embouchure it feels a tadge foreign and you clamping harder than necessary.

Fraser Jarvis said:
So am in the change over at the moment, hope the actual tone improves as it sounds very thin and buzzy at the moment, altisimo's gone...but the main thing is i can play for extended periods without any pain, so i guess Jim Knight was right, Fraser was wrong!
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you might be using different facial muscles with the change of embouchure. I've found making the small change to my embouchure has a profound impact on my playing/tone. You might find the book called Developing A Personal Saxophone Sound by David Liebman (I know they stock them at sax.co.uk) interesting.
 
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I used to have uneven front teeth and get through the thicker patches at quite a pace. I then filed my teeth using a metal file and never looked back - took 2 minutes and cost nothing. I use 3mm patches which last for ever. Alternatively I could have had a dentist do it for £300+........:shocked::w00t:;}
 
TomMapfumo said:
I used to have uneven front teeth and get through the thicker patches at quite a pace. I then filed my teeth using a metal file and never looked back - took 2 minutes and cost nothing. I use 3mm patches which last for ever. Alternatively I could have had a dentist do it for £300+........:shocked::w00t:;}
Click to expand...


Or have I got it all wrong ...

The Before and After are ...
the wrong way round ? :)))
​
 

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