That's hilarious. It's always good to have friends that have your back.

Thanks. I picked that tip up from a saxophone player a very long time ago.

Great to hear. If you have any other questions, I can make an attempt at answering them.

Glad to hear. Sometimes it just takes a little titbit from some random source to discover a different approach that helps.

That's great to hear. I'd love to do more cross-over videos that use both clarinet and saxophone because the two complement each other really well.

I’am a player for classical music. This also helps me a lot! Great video! Big Thank you!

You're doing pretty good to be able to do 30min+ sessions. My thumb gives out on me if I try and do long sessions, which is why I got myself a Ton Kooiman thumb rest to help. I always recommend many small practices (up to 30 min) rather than a massive session. If you have TMJ, you have the added pressure of ensuring that the embouchure is not working too hard.

You've made my day, that's one of the best comments I've ever gotten, especially by mentioning Eddie Daniels in the same paragraph. His The Five Seasons was one of the first CDs I ever bought, and I think I had to pay $35NZD for special order via Real Groovy Auckland just to get a copy. This and Ken Peplowski Quintet - Sonny Side, were recommended to me by my teacher back in day, but gosh, acquiring CDs like this in NZ in the late 90s was an expensive and patient exercise. Those two pros were (are) two major influences on myself as a clarinetist.

Thanks. I'll admit I'm a clarinetist first, saxophonist second, but it's not a big deal to transition from saxophone to clarinet. Sure, there are some minor fingering differences and the open tone holes are unforgiving, but to get a sound out and play some tunes isn't a big transition. What is a surprise to saxophone players moving to clarinet though, is the different physical requirement on the embouchure. If your desired sound is a New Orleans or dixieland style, then the physicality difference isn't as much; getting a Benny Goodman sound, a bit harder still, trying to get that rich warm classical sound, now that's a physical ask. When going from saxophone to clarinet, you'll likely hear the tone differences as demonstrated at about the 3:30 mark. Anyone who teases that making a good tone should be effortless hasn't been to a Cirque du Soleil performance to see how easy the acrobats make their feats look :)

Biting is going to mean different things to different people. For some, it's simply either your top teeth putting too much downward pressure on the mouthpiece and/or, the bottom teeth pushing up, which for those those who roll their bottom lip in a bit, results in their bottom teeth stabbing their bottom lip. For others, it's the idea that jaw is just far too clenched, and this tires you out real quick (and can be problematic is other ways). I really should make a video to try and explain some ways to help avoid certain aspects of the embouchure dominating. It's really a balance thing. Personally I rest my top teeth on the mouthpiece because it provides better balance, but those who prefer double lip embouchure avoid using the teeth at all. Yes, you'll definitely need pressure of your lips on the mouthpiece, firstly to create a seal, and secondly to help "mold the sound". If you're worried you may be biting, try squeezing the sides of the mouthpiece with your lips more, rather than from the top and bottom direction. It's kind of like puckering your lips :)

For a 9 min video, you'd think I'd have had something about tonguing :) As unintuitive as it sounds, the tongue is always touching the reed; it's just not applying pressure such that the reed stops vibrating. As a drill, put your tongue on the reed, such that no air can go through (i.e. squish the reed against the mouthpiece), then blow (no sound, because the tongue is down), now release the tongue so that air can suddenly rush through the instrument to create sound. Then, put the tongue back down to stop the sound (but keep trying to force air through). Then release the tongue again, etc to continue the exercise. This not only helps get the tongue into the habit of being as close as it can be to the reed, but also reinforces the idea the airflow is continuous (think water pressure, but with the tap closed). Tongue shape and placement can get pretty tricky to describe, but this drill should help.

You can try to ("pronounce") breath a french "hu" (not an English "u") ... as you whistle... the position of the tongue is most good... higher.... the both lateral sides of the tongue touch the lateral superior teeth... ...I think this tips can be help you... to keep the tongue in a good position... PS: I'm a french clarinetist... 😉

@@guydrommer7958 Merci! 😊

@@CodedNotes your videos are always good!

@@lillianhusbymelien5471 The " french "hu" " is like the "ou" in the English word "throught" ( perhaps just a little bit more open )... ...for practice you can try to pronounce haa huu and feel the tongue movement. ... to the back and down position on "haa" to the high and front position... ...the point of the tongue is always just behind the point of the reed... and we can touch easily the reed with a very little movement of the tongue... ...for articulation you can pronounce "du" or "dou" lightly... ...have a nice day....

Achieving a clarinet tone one likes is definitely a challenge; it's a very personal thing. There are so many variables, so everyone's route of discovery is different. If I were to try and help: Airy is perhaps too hard a reed for your current embouchure strength, scratchy because of a lack of what people describe as "focused air" (embouchure is kind of shaping/condensing the air channel in a particular way), and smooth is air support, i.e. being able to maintain the embouchure (not getting the shakes), and keeping the air moving. Yeah, really hard to describe.

@@CodedNotes Thank you so much for taking your time to reply! I just moved from 2.5 to a 3.0 reed so maybe I have not got used to it and that's why it's so airy 😅

A harder reed (to a point), will definitely help with making a warmer tone. They certainly help high notes sound less screechy, but your muscles have to work for it! Unfortunately reeds are fickle beasts and two reeds of the same brand and size won't behave the same. If you're transitioning to harder reeds, during practise, I suggest using them for a a bit, then swapping them out for softer ones when you start tiring.

By splitting are you meaning down the grain? That should never happen. Reeds a can get a bit chipped at the tip if you accidentally scrape it on your clothes or something, but splitting shouldn't happen; certainly not with major reed manufacturers like Vandoren, Rico and D'Adarrio.

@@CodedNotes yes down the grain . It's got to be because I've tried Vandoren and Rico, I manage to split them both.

Clarinet almost has its own language for squeaks, but usually it comes down to a few things. I'm going to assume that your clarinet is well serviced and that the pads are all closing properly. If a pad fails, or doesn't seal for whatever reason, depending on where it is, the clarinet could squeak. Usually it will sound stifled first, but if you try and blow the instrument harder to compensate, it could result in a squeak. Generally though, I find that younger students sometimes don't quite close the thumb hole completely, especially when they also have to use the register key (i.e. play high notes). Even I squeak when I get tired and don't quite close the thumb hole correctly. As youngsters adds more fingers onto the instrument, it's very easy for hands start sliding off keys. When air escapes some tone holes, there are squeaks, for others, there's just no sound. Something to try is to rest the clarinet bell on something in order to take the weight. See what happens. The last thing is the reed. Assuming the reed is a good one, it's possible to "pinch" it, which makes the clarinet jump some harmonics. Think of a how a trumpeter uses their lips to pitch up to higher and higher notes; clarinet can do something similar if you purse your lips and squeeze the poor reed too much. It will jump harmonics, which, when high enough, sound like squeaks. I hope some of this info helps. If you have a teacher, I suggest getting them to play your clarinet to make sure it's mechanically fine.

There's a risk of over complicating things. At 2:18, I allude to shaping the mouth (especially the inside of the mouth) to sound out certain sounds (too, doo etc) and doing so heavily influences tongue position. A "low/high" tongue position considers front, mid and back of the tongue, which is getting quite detailed, so it's simpler to describe it in terms of shaping the embouchure as if sounding vowels etc. I describe tongue position in a couple of other videos if you're curious on my take on it: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jJZ3d9aVmam0ZaM.html and kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ar2YiN2cs8DUqWw.html "Biting", i.e how much influence the top teeth have (if at all) at holding on to the instrument is a whole different topic which I've wanted to make a video on.

@@CodedNotes Thanks for your reply. I'll check out the other videos. Biting around here means any excess jaw pressure. That comes from the bottom jaw as the top teeth are part of the skull and don't themselves move indepently as the bottom jaw does. The topic of pushing up with the right thumb, which might be a way to engage the top teeth (or hopefully just the embouchure if playing double lip) is an interesting one. I have mixed thoughts on that!

You don’t risk overcomplicating things. What you would be doing is turning generalized metaphors into practical tools. When you say you have to focus the air, you could add that you focus the air by playing with a high tongue. This position forces the air through a small channel giving you that classical beautiful and focused clarinet tone.

@@madraven07 I can't picture what a low tongue position would mean unless you're refering to dropping the jaw, reducing all pressure on the reed and turning a "too/doo" mouth shape into "deoooaaww". Perhaps that's what you're referring to by inferring the inverse? In that case, yes, I agree. To say too/doo hopefully puts one's tongue into the correct "high" position and given it's difficult to picture what the tongue is doing (we can't see inside out mouths), using vowel sounds is a useful reference point. Speaking and diction require the tongue, and the right vowel sounds help position everything correctly.

@@CodedNotes I get the impression that you use a pretty resistant set-up on the clarinet. With a less resistant one you can easily drop your tongue without lessening the pressure from the jaw to create a saggy and spread sound. Too/doo is too low a tongue position for many, especially in the upper registers. Tee/Dee or maybe Teh/Deh (but only in the chalumeau) is more useful in that case. There may also be some difference due to accent and inflection in speech. In this case Australia versus US west coast.

It's a result of microphone placement and the compression I use in Audacity. Unfortunately if I place the AT2020 where it should be for recording clarinet, spoken words are too quite and I'd have to use too much compression in order to boost the quieter speech. With the mic where it is in this video, it unfortunately picks up a lot of 'mouth sounds', also amplified because of the compressions settings I use in Audacity. I'm open for idea on how to fix this (short of using multiple microphones and lots of extra audio mixing).

I'm a New Zealander, so we're almost obligated to give them a ribbing.

@@CodedNotes Yeh Bra go murries one day will be part of NSW :)

@@victorpashkevich8801 Australia is already NZ's "West Island".

@@CodedNotes you got the better pollies too.

Try and be more Adelaide rather than Sydney :)

@@CodedNotes I have no chance…. I’m from Queensland. 😝

It's funny that Essex or old cockney accents also sound a bit Australian.

@@tremonro6358 Not surprising at all. The Australian accent (and the majority of the early British Australians) came from 19th century London. Read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and you’d almost swear that most of the characters are speaking with an Australian accent.