You wonderful people seem to have the answer to everything... so here goes with another query......

After playing my clarinet my teeth feel sore - I practise for about half an hour a day and so far I haven't had aching arms/thumb/mouth muscles so was thinking myself lucky! The problem is, my teeth aren't perfectly straight - my two front teeth are slightly longer than the others (only slightly - I don't resemble Bugs Bunny!). I know I'm not biting down on the clarinet, but in order to close the corners of my mouth properly, I think my teeth are being sort of pushed into the mouthpiece - I have a pretty small mouth as well and I think the extra length on th front teeth is geteting in the way...?

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense, it's quite hard to describe! Does anyone have any suggestions on embouchure, technique etc? Failing that, is it possible that I've picked the wrong instrument and it would be better to choose something else?

PS - I really like wind instruments rathet than strings or percussion!

Help!

play the flute!
haha, ok, that was a bit random
sorry, i'm not a clarinet player, so don't have any suggestions. why don't you talk to your teacher? they will tell you if you've developed a weird technique and will be able to sort it out for you
hoxie
x

I get that sometimes. Are you using a reed that's too hard. or a mouthpiece that doesn't suit you? Try changing to a softer reed - what are you using now???

It's actually an even greater hinderance on the flute. Long teeth distort the air stream into the mouth hole.

I don't find it a problem playing the clarinet with longer front teeth. Make sure you don't bite too hard though, this is bad for tone as well as the mouthpiece. Something you might find helpful is the mouthpiece pads. They do cushion the teeth slightly, although it will keep them even higher up so it could work either way in your case. I'd say just persevere with it.

One of my front teeth is longer than the other and all my top teeth are a bit wonky, and I find it difficult. I play out the side of my mouth, partly for that reason and partly from when I wore a skirt at school and had to sit funny.

I put a cushined mouthpiece patch on and that stopped my teeth hurting a bit. Well they don't go numb anymore put it that way!

I'm using a 1.5 reed at the moment so I don't think it's that - never heard of mouthpiece pads though - I must admit they sound like exactly the sort of thing I need - think I might give those a go... My teacher is on holiday at the moment so I'll ask him when he's back!

Thanks again everyone - can't believe what a huge amount of knowledge is on this forum!