Klarinet Archive - Posting 000142.txt from 1994/06

From: Oliver Seely <oliver@-----.FR>
Subj: A quick note from Paris.
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 1994 04:22:09 -0400

My recent resubscription to KLARINET makes me realize how much I've missed
by not being a subscriber during the last two years. I'll not let that happen
again. Thanks to several of you for good advice via private messages about
the Selmer model S crystal mouthpiece. I started taking lessons when I
was 10 years old (I'm 55 now). I was thinking about buying a new clarinet
and my teacher said with a twinkle in his eye, "You ought to go to Paris
to the Selmer factory where they'll let you try out one after another until
you get one you like." Well, I didn't buy a clarinet yesterday, but I did
buy a mouthpiece. The Model S is no longer made -- I don't know how long it
has not been made but when I arrived at 18, rue Fontaine au Roi and showed
a technician what I was looking for he said "Oh, la, la" and treated it like
an antique. Damn! I really like that mouthpiece but it has a tiny chip out
on the upper lip and it is only a matter of time until it grows too big to
be useable. Anyway, it was a great pleasure to carry out the whole transaction
in French. The technician brought me 12 mouthpieces, 2 of each model (!) and
showed me to a room filled with soprano saxaphones laid out on tables and shelve
s
and told me to try them out until I found one I liked -- just like my teacher
said 45 years ago.

But the main purpose of this posting is to say that I found what I'll call
a greater "perceived" difference between two mouthpieces of the same model
than between certain different models. That REALLY surprised me because
from one crystal model S to the next, the quality was very uniform.
Do any of you have comments about differences between a pair of mouthpieces
of the same model.

Thanks to Mr. Monsen for giving me a lead to the Paris office of Selmer (by
the way, the Paris office is NOT the factory -- the factory is in
Mantes-la-ville, or variously Mantes-la-jolie. Also, I couldn't transmit
"le bonjour" to Jerome Selmer as he was otherwise occupied. I did get a
current price list, however.

Finally, when I was 11 years old, my Dad bought me a Penzel-Mueller (New York)
Bb used clarinet from a local jazz clarinetist and it was a couple of decades
old then. Although I use my Buffet for important events at home, I traipse
around the world with my Penzel-Mueller. Maybe on some future trip soon
I'll make it out to the Buffet or Selmer factories for the BIG purchase.

Oliver Seely

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org