Of course, one can just blow into the mouthpiece and hope that if the breath and embouchure are correct, the sound will be good. Sometimes this works, but often it is not enough, and there is a desire to slightly modify the sound - to add something to it or to change its color.

The embouchure controls part of this, but the way the air stream is shaped inside the mouth is equally important. This is a rather complex topic, because we usually do not have a clear awareness of what is happening inside the oral cavity: where the tongue is (or more precisely, where its different parts are - front, middle, and back), what shape the tongue takes, where the soft palate is, and whether it is lowered or raised.

This is a large field for experimentation. The simplest approach is to shape the oral cavity as if sustaining different vowel qualities. For example:

“o” as in low

“yo / ё” as in yawn

“u” as in food

“yu / ю” as in you

“i” as in machine

German umlauts such as “ü” or “ö” can also be useful reference points, as they closely resemble some of these vowel shapes.

In this context, articulation can be very helpful, because we can articulate using the same syllables that we use to shape the oral cavity - for example, “tu,” “tü,” or “tö.” In this way, articulation actively helps to form and stabilize the sound.

Some players try to create a larger resonating space in the mouth by using a yawn or a half-yawn. Others imagine that there is a small hot potato in the mouth and shape the oral cavity in such a way as not to get burned.

Others are more concerned with focusing the sound, and for them the decisive element is a raised position of the middle part of the tongue, similar to the German sound “ich.” Some achieve a similar effect by allowing the middle of the tongue to come close to the upper teeth.

It seems that a “correct” oral cavity setup includes all of these elements at once.

The embouchure should be rather compact, similar to the vowel in “tü.” The front of the tongue stays close to the reed (as in “ü”). The middle part of the tongue is raised, reducing the space between the tongue and the hard palate and thereby focusing the air stream. At the same time, the soft palate can be raised as in a yawn, which rounds and enriches the sound.

Doing all of this simultaneously is very difficult, especially at first. That is why it is useful to practice different exercises, particularly since many of them can be done without the clarinet, but more about that later.