Help! My Bb and A sound hissy

[tseligas]

I agree 100% with Niaven's comments! 2 1/2 reed is a challenge but it really pays after a while. You have much more muscle that you can work with and you do feel the improvement in your control.

From my experience I have seen that different companies have different scales in the hardness of the reeds. I mainly use Vandoren...

Niaven what's your pick? I ve used Rico in the past but have of them where unplayable.

Evaki, I have another idea.:
In the clarinet usually the notes that you talk about at the lower scale come out weak. You have to use the throat to help make them stronger. This is also a technique used in glissando.

You see the reed frequency of vibration is controlled by the resonances in the clarinet and the ones in your throat. Usually the clarinet resonance are very strong and your throat can only have a minor effect. But in the case of the A, Bb, open G and even E the clarinet resonance are weak ...and that's why you don't have strong tone. So here you can use your throat resonance to make the tones stronger.

Here is how to practice this. Start by clearing your throat and try to keep that frequency....now drive the vibration towards your uraniscus. So starting from the esophagus clear the throat all the way to the edge of your upper teeth. As you go up you are increasing the frequency.

Now blow a G and try to find the same frequency in your throat. That will help a lot making those notes stronger.
Of course don't overdo it. These are a bit advanced tricks!!

Niaven, do you practice this technique??