Do Different Ligatures Matter?
February 22, 2004 in Articles
SirSaxAlot writes “Do different ligatures make different sounds/tones? Do they really make a difference? I’m really looking to find my own sound and any help would be very helpfull. thanx!”
Yes they do make a difference. You can spend a LONG TIME messing around with reed/ligature combinations. That is of course assuming you’ve settled on a mouthpiece. A mouthpiece piece hunt could take forever sometimes. Perhaps that hunt never really ends for sum…..
Right now I’m using a “vintage” Meyer brothers Alto mouthpiece with some no name metal ligature (for jazz) and a Selmer S-80 C* with a Rovner (with a little square in the middle…dark one?) ligature. On tenor I’m using a 4 year old or so rubber Berg Larsen with the ligature it came with. On soprano it’s a Berg with, I think, the ligature it came with. On clarinet I use a Roland Caravan mouthpiece with an original Rovner ligature. The clarinet setup I love to death!
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Shaft said on February 28, 2004
Of coarse you can get a better/different sound from a different reed/mouthpiece/ligature combination, but don’t get carried away. Get a good basic set-up and work on your technique to make it sound better. I was talking to Jerry Bergonzi once and he said he was using ordinary orange-box ricos on his tenor. That’s about as bargain basement as you can get. Just find set up with some flexibility and work on it. No set up sounds better than good technique.
mrhappyballoon said on April 22, 2004
I definately agree that ligatures can make a difference. But I also feel that out of the entire setup that is the least influencial aspect to tone quality. If you havent developed a good tone yet it is pointless to spend big bucks on a ligature because it will have little or no effect. I personally don’t like Rovner and other similar cloth ligatures because I feel that some tone qualities are lost. If you think about it, using a Rovner is like putting a thick cloth around the point of resonance. What does cloth do to vibrations? It stops them, and absorbs them. Where as metal allows the vibrations continue.
Novice said on June 29, 2004
I agree with the above point. Ligatures can make a big difference to the sound coming out of your horn. I tried a Rovner ligature with an alto Otto Link Metal mouthpiece and I felt as if my tone was being strangled. I experimented with BG Classic metal and the Francois Louis ultimate ligature and the sound was much brighter/freer. Having said that, I met a selmer tenor player at a jam session who was playing with a rovner ligature and had a full, rich sound. His advice to me was to practice overtones/longtones/mouthpiece exercises. An expensive ligature is no substitute for a well trained embouchure. It seems to be working for me…
ericdano said on June 29, 2004
Your last statement is the key “An expensive ligature is no substitute for a well trained embrouchure”.