Why and How to Strengthen Your Embochure

Photo by Enis Yavuz on Unsplash

You've probably heard that the corners of your embouchure are important. But why exactly? And how do you actually develop those muscles so they can do their job?

This post covers both of those questions: why the corners matter so much for your clarinet sound, and what you can do every day to make them stronger.

1. What the Corners Are and Why They Matter

When I talk about the corners of the embouchure, I mean the sides of the mouth around the mouthpiece. Not the bottom lip, not the top lip, not the top teeth. The whole surrounding area that wraps around the sides.

The corners have two important jobs. The first is pretty obvious: they have to seal around the mouthpiece so that air doesn't leak out the sides. If you've ever played and heard that little airy puffing sound escaping from the corners, that's a corner seal problem. It can happen to anyone using high-pressure air, but keeping those corners strong minimizes it.

The second job is actually more important than the sealing. When the corners squeeze in and support the mouthpiece from the sides, it takes pressure off the reed. That might sound counterintuitive at first. You'd think squeezing in would mean more pressure everywhere. But what actually happens is that squeezing in from the sides forces the jaw to open up slightly, which gets the biting pressure off the reed and allows it to vibrate more freely.

Reed vibration is where your sound comes from. The more freely the reed can vibrate, the better and more resonant the sound. That's why strong corners are so directly connected to tone quality.

2. The Finger Exercise: Feeling What the Corners Actually Do

Before we talk about how to strengthen the corners, I want you to feel what they actually do. You can try this right now without a clarinet.

Put your finger in your mouth as if it's the mouthpiece, with your top teeth resting on the fingernail. Then just close your mouth in a relaxed, natural way.

What you'll probably notice is that you're biting down. Our jaws are built for chewing, and that's their default mode. You'll feel a lot of pressure from the top and bottom, squeezing on the reed side of your finger.

Now flatten your chin downward. You'll feel the pressure shift a bit. It gets more focused and a little less rounded, but there's still a lot of pressure coming from the jaw.

Now, with your finger still in your mouth and your chin flat, think about pulling the corners of your mouth in. Squeeze from the sides.

Feel what happens. The jaw pressure eases up. The pressure becomes more evenly distributed all the way around the mouthpiece rather than concentrated on the reed side. That's exactly the effect we're going for when we play.

One more refinement: once you have those corners in, think about anchoring slightly into the top lip. Aim for about 60 to 70 percent of the pressure going upward into the top teeth, and less coming down from below. That frees up the reed even further and gives it the most room to vibrate.

Run through that sequence a few times. The more you can feel the difference between biting and corner-squeezing, the easier it becomes to apply in your actual playing.

3. How to Strengthen the Corners

Here's the honest truth about strengthening the embouchure corners: the best way to do it is to play. Specifically, to play long tones with really high quality and really close attention to your sound.

When you commit to getting your absolute best sound and not letting any air leak from the corners, you are forced to bring those corners in. That's the exercise. And it works in exactly the same way you'll need them to work when you're playing music.

The other exercises below are helpful, and they do work the right muscles. But none of them are a substitute for long tones. Think of them as supplemental.

4. The EU Exercise

This is my favorite supplemental exercise for the corners, and you can do it anywhere without a clarinet.

Say the syllable E, as dramatically as you can. Really stretch those corners wide. Then say U, as in a German or French U sound, not the flat English "oo" but something more forward and focused. Really pull those corners in tight.

Go back and forth: E, U, E, U. Stretch wide, squeeze in, stretch wide, squeeze in. Be really dramatic about it. The bigger the motion, the better the workout.

There's a secondary benefit here too: keeping your tongue in the high E position as you transition into the U gets you practicing good tongue voicing at the same time. But the primary goal is corner strength, so focus most of your attention on really squeezing those corners together on the U.

It looks a bit ridiculous. That's fine. You can do this in the car, while watching TV, while waiting in line. Nobody needs to know.

5. Straw Sucking

Another great corner exercise is simply sucking through a straw. The sucking motion naturally engages the exact muscles we want to strengthen.

The ideal version of this exercise involves a thick milkshake and a narrow straw. Having to work hard to draw that milkshake up is a genuine corner workout, and it's the most enjoyable way to do it.

If you don't have a milkshake handy, you can get a similar effect by putting your finger in your mouth as if it were a straw, forming something close to your embouchure shape, and then sucking. Really focus on feeling the corners engage as you do it. The more you think about squeezing those corners in during the sucking motion, the more targeted the exercise becomes.

6. The Windblow Tool

The last option I want to mention is a specific tool called the Windblow. I haven't personally used one, but I've seen other players use them and I think it's a genuinely clever product for this specific purpose.

The Windblow is a small plastic device with spring-loaded buttons on both sides. When the buttons aren't pressed in, you can't blow through it. When you squeeze the buttons together with just the corners of your mouth, it opens up a passage and allows air through. So you're working your corner muscles and your airstream at the same time.

If you're looking for a focused corner-strengthening tool and want something designed specifically for this, it's worth looking into.

I put together a video version of all of this on my YouTube channel where you can actually watch me demonstrate the finger exercise, the EU drill, and talk through how the corners affect the sound in real time. If you're a visual learner or just want to hear it explained out loud, it makes a nice companion to this post.