It’s Not Me… It’s You (The Clarinet):  A Teacher’s Perspective on When to Actually Blame the Clarinet

Have you ever found yourself (or a student) playing a scale and you just don’t sound your usual self on clarinet? Then you happen to squeak and quickly attempt to adjust the reed or ligature, apologize to your teacher, and then continue the cycle for the next few minutes?

Well, I’ve had this happen in clarinet lessons more times than I can count with my students! When we don’t sound our normal selves, we immediately want to blame the reed or our equipment as if casting blame will suddenly fix the problem of fuzzy tone, squeaks, or high notes not coming out. Here’s my usual response as a teacher: “Blow more air!”

But, here’s the question; after years of telling my students to “blow more air,” “fix your embouchure,” “raise your tongue,” etc., how can we actually tell if the playing issues are a ‘Me Issue’ or a ‘Clarinet Equipment Issue’? 

Students Often Blame Their Equipment, Not Themselves

While some students come into lessons knowing full well how prepared they are, many times the immediate instinct is to act as if wrong notes or clarinet squawks are because of a bad reed day. While bad reed days definitely happen, I always want my students to try and find a way to make it work even when playing with more resistance and poor response.

The first thing I would like you to consider is what you can do to eliminate the issue. First and foremost, just blow more air. Reeds need to vibrate, and a clarinet needs the whole instrument filled with air to properly resonate tone from the instrument. Instead of thinking about making a sound, think about blowing enough air that the whole room is filled with your sound.

Secondly, check your embouchure and tongue position. Especially if you are struggling with higher notes or a fuzzy sound, make sure your corners are firm, your chin is flat (almost like pulling your chin down away from the mouthpiece), and your tongue is high inside your mouth. I would suggest making a “heee” sound to practice high tongue position (try hissing like a cat).

Once you’re sufficiently blowing enough air and have your embouchure points firm, you can start to eliminate whether resistance issues, fuzzy tone, squeaks, and high note issues are a you issue or a clarinet equipment issue.

Address Equipment Issues While Practicing or During Lessons

Once my students have worked through the previous tests, we can then address physical equipment concerns. Let’s start at the top and work our way down.

The clarinet reed is tiny, but mighty. In fact, sometimes I find it infuriating that with all the fancy clarinet equipment out there that one’s playing success often comes down to a little piece of wood and whether it chooses to vibrate properly or not. Resistance issues and fuzzy tone can often come from an old or water-logged reed. If all your reeds feel too resistant, maybe you need to try a 1/2 or 1/4 strength lower with your next reed purchase. I also recommend rotating at least four reeds if you’re in middle or high school, and 8 or more reeds in college. Rotating reeds helps keep them in shape longer by allowing each reed to have relaxing time between playing. Think of stretching and relaxing between exercises; we all need that to keep going and not get burned-out, over-tired, or muscle-strained. This is actually how reeds work! Reeds also need time to dry fully between playing to help them regain firmness and help the wood pores from getting stretched out from all the water and vibration while playing. 

Enough about reeds, let’s discuss the mouthpiece and ligature. Make sure the top of your ligature is lined up right underneath the line on the mouthpiece, or the line on the reed that separates the base and the facing (the square part is the base, the wood grain part is the facing). The tip of your mouthpiece and reed should be lined up with each other, and if you happen to have a chipped mouthpiece, I would recommend buying a new one. Lastly on mouthpieces, if everything physically looks lined up, try swabbing out your mouthpiece to make sure any grime is removed so air can flow freely from the mouthpiece into the clarinet.

Concerning checking the clarinet for issues that might be causing squeaks, fuzziness, and resistance, unfortunately the potential problems can be endless when considering all the toneholes, pads, springs, and more. I will say that the most common issues I see on the clarinet from a teacher’s perspective are lower joint alignment issues on the E/B pinky keys, bridge key alignment issues that cause squeaks, and pointer finger A key screw alignment issues. Here are the steps I recommend for trying to determine where and what the issues are:

• Start on your low F and play a 2 octave F major scale slowly. This will reveal any leaks or alignment issues with the bridge key and A key. This will also reveal whether there are problems with the lower joint or the upper joint.
• Start on C and play a 2 octave C major scale slowly. This will reveal issues with the E/B key and whether it’s sealing when you play B over the break. Secondly, as you play up to high C, alignment issues causing squeaks are likely to be revealed.
• Lastly, play a chromatic scale from Low E up through high C above the staff. Make note of any keys that feel different, squeak, or have notes that do not come out altogether.

If you’re having ongoing issues and a quick fix by your clarinet teacher isn’t working, please schedule a repair appointment with Clarinets by Copeland and Jonathan or Alex will get you fixed right up!

Ultimately the hope is that you simply do just need to ‘blow more air,’ but when that’s not working anymore, we need to address equipment issues so you can play with ease and confidence!

Equipment Confidence Leads to Better Playing

There are few things more satisfying as a clarinet player than walking into a lesson and playing all of our music excellently and feeling like we rocked that lesson! When equipment issues take us off our game regularly and are keeping us from improving, it might be time to consider upgrading. I’m going to keep my words short and link some previous articles about what to consider when buying a new mouthpiece or a new clarinet, but I will briefly discuss how reeds and ligatures can improve your clarinet and bring back your confidence.

Reeds can be so overwhelming with all of the brands, varieties, and strengths on the market. When considering changing reeds I would first make sure you’re playing with a strength that works for you. I personally play on 3 1/2s because I find they’re the perfect balance with immediate response but resistance that allows me to play high notes without squeaking. Again, this is my personal preference with my playing style and the equipment I use. Using that idea, I would recommend you consider different strengths for your set up. Find a reed that isn’t so easy-blowing that high notes are flat or difficult, but holds some resistance. Additionally you need a reed that isn’t fuzzy or airy sounding, so trying different reed cuts can help. Here are few examples:

• A filed reed cut with a thinner tip but thicker heart (Vandoren Traditional); offers quick response and a balanced sound.
• Thicker filed reed cut but has a longer pallet (Vandoren V12s); more of the reed vibrates which creates a longer lasting reed with dark sound.
• Unfiled reed cut usually with a thicker spine and pallet (Vandoren V21); more wood doesn’t necessarily mean harder to play, but can often have a bit more resistance with a smooth and darker tone.

When upgrading a ligature, I like to stick to the basics and just focus on getting a ligature that helps your reed vibrate evenly! You don’t need anything ridiculously expensive–a leather ligature with a single screw will work great! If you want to look at other options, I recommend narrowing down what you want more of in your sound and finding a ligature that helps with that. For instance, you want more ping and vibrancy? Then try a single screw metal ligature. If you want evenness into the upper register with resonance, try a double screw gold plated ligature. 

Ligatures and mouthpieces have endless options and it really comes down to the tone concept and what you want to accomplish with your sound. Read Alex Malone’s thoughts on finding a mouthpiece for more ideas on your mouthpiece adventures. Similarly, making a full clarinet upgrade is a whole process that we’ve discussed at Copeland a few times now; I recommend looking at Jonathan’s previous article for more insight!

The most important thing to me as a teacher is that my students feel confident with their equipment and capable of carrying out the assignments I’m giving them on a weekly basis. I want my students to feel empowered and that they are improving. Every clarinet player will reach a crossroads at some point where updated equipment is needed, but until then it’s important we all remember to just “blow more air,” and more than likely we can get those high notes out and play pretty just a little bit longer. 

-Jillissa Anderson