Klarinet Archive - Posting 000069.txt from 1994/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: outgrowing mouthpieces
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 1994 06:13:17 -0400

Lori ARcher's comment on outgrowing mouthpieces has generated a lot of
response. I can understand how the use of a perfectly good
mouthpiece could lead to a desire for the improvement of certain
characteristics, thus leading to a search for a new one. But Lori's
statement sounded to me like some kind of truism; i.e., to play the
clarinet you start out with a mouthpiece and you naturally outgrow it,
just like you outgrow the clarinet itself and eventually need a new one.

That kind of philosophy sends chills us my spine and it is what makes
instrument and mouthpiece manufacturers happy. Namely that players get
conditioned to replacing their equipment periodically, even if it is
playing well. It is nothing more than a variation of the "blow out of
clarinets" that we beat to death on this board a year ago.

"My clarinet is 10 years old and is blown out so I have to buy a new one."
The are many who think that such a statement is absolutely correct and
others who think it to be horse hockey. So when Lori said that she played
on a B45 (which is about as professional a mouthpiece as one can get
though, like anything else, there are good and bad ones) and then said
that she had outgrown it, it struck me as a simple variation of the
blow out phenomenon. So I put my 2 cents in.

Lori does not know it, but she compounded the problem in her response
to questions raised. She compared it with using a Bundy resonite
clarinet and then said she changed that to get a GOOD clarinet.

The BUNDY clarinet, like anything else, is sometimes good and sometimes
bad. I played a Bundy E-flat for years in a symphony orchestra and
did Till Eulenspiegel on it several times. It was great. So to say
that Lori changed her Bundy in for something GOOD is acceptance of
the belief that a less expensive instrument could not possibly be as
good as a more expensive one.

HORSE HOCKEY!!! That statement may be true, but it may also be false.

This kind of attitude pervades the whole clarinet playing scene. I
see it on this board twice a day when players, who are probably perfectly
respectible performers talk about replacing relatively new and
perfectly respectible instruments with newer ones for reasons that
completely elude me, and seem to be more of a response to a social
phenomenon than a musical one. One member of KLARINET suggested several
month ago that he could not possibly continue to play on his LeBlanc
because all the other players had Buffets. In effect, he was the victim
of social pressure, not musical values. Was his LeBlanc out of tune?
Was it a poor quality instrument? None of these things. It just was
not the right brand name. There is a decided similarity in clarinet
usage with women's clothing. (I don't mean to be sexist. Men's
clothing is not such a social phenomenon as women's where the year's
fashions are a big business.) There is the "in" clarinet and the
others. And clarinet players act like sheep in some respects being
led to the perfect sound and ease of blowing and beautiful tone, by
advertisements that could be either for clarinets or for women's
hem lengths.

And when you take "outgrowing a mouthpiece" to its extreme, that is
where you wind up; nameley, buying something because it is the
politically correct thing to do, not because it has any value.

In Lori's case, she is lucky. Pyne is a responsible person and would
not suggest a new mouthpiece if she did not need one. But as a
general rule, I would be suspicious of anyone who told me that a
B45 (presumably good) had become outgrown.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
(leeson@-----.edu)
(dnl2073@-----.edu)
Any of the above three addresses may be used. Take your pick.
====================================