Clarinet Mouthpiece

Clarinet Mouthpiece

The Mouthpiece and Lay

The clarinet's mouthpiece - together with the reed - serves as a creator of tones (of sound waves, technically speaking). Looking at different wind instruments like the oboe, trumpet, flute or clarinet you will find a wide variety of ways to create a tone and they result in different types of mouthpieces.

Clarinet Mountpiece

A clarinet mouthpiece is nothing more than the end of a cylindrical tube with a flattened end onto which a reed is fastened, either with a ligature or a cord as can be seen on the picture left (the cord is typical for Germans). One can blow into this end and you will get a somewhat squeaking, high pitched note - but this definitely is a clarinet sound. Ancient woodwind instruments did not have the mouthpiece separated from the instrument, and with very ancient ones the reed was a part of the instruments body (which was made from reed grass), separated by simply sawing a slot between body and reed.

The Most Individual Part of the Instrument Clarinet

If the mouthpiece creates the tone, then the delicately crafted rest of the clarinet is needed. And it's the mouthpiece that matters most for the sound. However, this is true for most - if not all - wind instruments.
Playing with the same excellent mouthpiece on two different clarinets, one that is simple, made of plastic, and one that is extremely expensive, you will most often find the difference in the sound. Different mouthpieces. Many players will doubt this - especially when you have paid for lots of your instrument.

But then many players use the same mouthpiece as they have the clarinet from the beginning and never tried a different one, even when they change their instruments (as long as the mouthpiece still fits). Of course they get used to the properties of the mouthpiece and know from their experience how to handle it. If you change your mouthpiece you will always face problems in the beginning. In fact you can considerably improve your tone and even your playing alltogether by using a mouthpiece that fits you.

What makes different mouthpieces different? Clarinet

This is mostly about ...
  Diameter of the bore
  Length of the lay or facing
  Steepness of the lay or tip opening

  Form and volume of the transgression between lay and bore (the chamber)



The diameter of the bore is defined by the instrument (or better: its type), because the mouthpiece must have the same bore as the rest of the instrument. This is for example 15,2 mm (equals 0.598 inch) for a German style A- or B flat clarinet and it is 14,9 mm (equals 0.587 inch) for an A or B flat Boehm instrument, just below the mouthpiece.
The lay-out is the cut-off surface on which you fix the reed, which has the wind-cut and the tip opening. On first glance the lay seems to be flat. In fact it is not; The surface of which is the reed is held with the ligature or a cord (which is called the table) is slightly concave and the opening is convex. The idea here is as follows:
The hollow table bends the reed like a spring when you fix it tighly onto the table. As a result the reed's tip would be a little above lay, so a thin gap is created that air can flow through.
The tip opening is convex, that is even with a perfectly flat reed gap, plus a swinging reed will close the wind-cut only for a very short fraction of time. If the tip opening was flat, the swinging reed would slap on the sides of the mouthpiece next to the wind-cut creating a croaking or squeaking sound. Because of the bent form even the strongest fff will not cause the reed to slap onto the lay when swinging.
You will hear that form and volume of the transition between the mouthpiece and the bore of the instrument is very important. In combination with the oral cavity they form an important part of the "resonance room" of the instrument. That explains why the very same instrument produces a different tone frequency with different players. The oral cavity is part of the swinging air system, which is the length of the instrument. Unfortunately, there is far too much practical knowledge about this, so mouthpiece and instrument manufacturers have to work with values ​​drawn from experience.
Different lengths and especially different bends at the tip opening result in mouth pieces of different "hardness" or "heavyness", that react differently and can respond differently to dynamics.
The choice depends on the individual player's features, especially the player's jaws and teeth.