In 2009, I slowly switched to double lip and haven’t looked back since. I started by playing held notes and slow passages double lip, later moving to double lip for everything. I was convinced that double lip was the way to go when I discovered the difference in my sound: it was warmer and richer than I had ever experienced before.
Just seen this video. I started playing at 65 and started with double-lip (because teacher told me to fold bottom lip over, so I just assumed the same for top lip). Always had positive comments on my tone, except for once on a course when tutor tried to make me go single lip and then only praised my tone when, unknown to him I'd reverted to double-lip! Nowadays I'm discovering/inventing for myself a flexible use of mouth muscles with double-lip to further improve tone, dynamics and resonance through the registers. For the dubious: Put two fingers in your mouth and flip between single and double lip - feel the impact on mouth cavity and throat!
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I’m totally on board with french embouchure. (I came over from oboe so it feels normal albeit the mouthpiece is way bulkier than a small oboe reed). Thank you for the parchment paper tip and all the info in your videos. So helpful. Are there certain mouthpiece types that are better suited for double lip (i.e. a mouthpiece with a shallower beak angle) or does it not really matter? Thank you!
Yes. For French embouchure playing you should be playing a mouthpiece with a closer tip opening (0.95--1.03mm) and a medium resistance curve. My Homage mouthpiece is specifically for French embouchure playing. Some find mouthpieces faced similarly to the 5RV Vandoren or old HS* to be workable. It's not a hard and fast rule, but the best results are normally created by mouthpieces with closer tip openings--and the facing should be VERY symmetrical, as asymmetrical facings create a twisting of the reed, and make the well-balanced reed ESSENTIAL for French embouchure playing virtually impossible to achieve in reed fixing. Symmetrically faced mouthpieces make well-balanced reeds much easier to achieve in the reed adjustment process. Since asymmetrical, aka, crooked, facings FORCE you to bite (use upward jaw pressure to focus the tone as well as control response and clarity) I do not recommend them at all for French embouchure playing. While French embouchure playing is NOT "no pressure" system, upward jaw pressure, clamping the reed to the facing is categorically anathema! (you can look it up). ;-) French embouchure is an EQUAL pressure system--with equal stress on Both upper and lower lip (the orbicular muscle). Ergo, controlling the reed by upward jaw pressure (aka, biting) is, by definition NOT an equal pressure/stress method of reed control, and will not give you the proper result.
One more issue about parchment paper. Cut and fold the papers the way you want. Then get a bowl of water (NOT tap water), place the various folded parts in the water. Get them well soaked before you use them. Keep them in the bowl. They will not deteriorate. Or, take them out after you finish playing, let them dry, but be sure to soak them again before using them.
The ONLY reason double lip is used or suggested to be used today is one man Harold Wright....look at all the crummy tones double lippers like Kell, Goodman, many other had...but Wright was just soooooo good that ...well, I just wonder, if he used single lip..would he have still sounded that good? mmm..maybe
No. He would not. The Mechanics do not provide the means. Kell, by the way, sounded wonderful in his youth. He married into money and was very disinclined to practice. But he was the best of the English school of players, and still is.
i liked thurston, but he didnt live long to make many recordings..yes, i agree, very young kell sounded good, but then, i think, benny influenced him , or maybe a nanny goat he heard@@avarmadillo
