Klarinet Archive - Posting 000539.txt from 1995/12

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re Tammi Spencer's comment on uniformity
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 12:56:22 -0500

Thank you Tami for telling us the story about how a former band
director bought two brands of mouthpieces for his school because
he personally liked them. While she did not say so, I am going
to presume that Tami meant that the band director was a clarinet
player who liked them when he played them (as contrasted with
liking them when he heard them).

There was a post on this very matter several months ago. It dealt
with a college at which the clarinet instructor insisted that all
students were required to have a particular brand of mouthpiece,
and failing that, were not permitted certain activities, though the
activities were not completely described. I assume that the student
could not play in the band or take lessons from that teacher, but I
really don't know the extent of the limitations.

When I read that posting, I did a slow burn and vowed that I would
calm down before posting anything on what appeared to me to be a
supreme act of stupidity; i.e., the insistance on a single mouthpiece
type or brand under the impression that (a) they were all alike, and
(b) that the mouthpiece alone was responsible for whatever it
was that the instructor was trying to achieve.

But I got occupied in other things, new horizons opened up, I
was finishing a paper for the Mozart Jahrbuch which just got
published, I stopped playing, and finally had to design a new
math class that I had never taught before. It went out of my head.

Now, thanks to Tami, it is back in my head and I am madder than hell!!

This is the extreme posture that some people get to in their belief
as to what impacts the sound character of a clarinet and in their
total lack of understanding of how mouthpieces (all mouthpieces)
differ one from another due to vagueries in the manufacturing
process. No matter how excellent the maker or how he or she wants
to achieve uniformity, it just doesn't happen.

Visit any music store that allows one to try mouthpieces and, if you
are lucky, try a half dozen Van Doren B45s. None are equivalent,
though each may be very good in its own way, or each may be very
poor.

A mouthpiece maker like Clark Fobes recognizes this and tests and
works every single mouthpiece to achieve his end. Yet all of his
blanks begin the same and a serious manufacturing effort was
undertaken to achieve uniformity in their production.

Herb Blayman in New Mexico does the same thing. Every single mouthpiece,
no exceptions, is personally tested and worked on, some to greater
and some to lesser degrees.

I suspect that many makers do this too, including Pyne and others. But
some, who allow their names to be used on a mouthpiece, have no role
in it after receiving a fee for the licensing of their name. That does
not mean that the mouthpieces are not good, only that the brand name
may not mean what you think it means.

The sophomoric assertion that all must play on one or two mouthpiece
brands to satisfy an aesthentic of a particular player and under the
presumption that if it works for him or her, it will work for you,
is an idea that is both beneath contempt and bankrupt.

An important ingredient of a mouthpiece that cannot be taken into
account during its development is your body, which is an important
adjunct to the production of sound. In fact, there was a discussion
on this board of more than a year ago that suggested that once the
air left the mouth, the sound was essentially formed no matter who
made the mouthpiece.

Sometimes, the world of clarinet playing appears to look like the
blind leading the blind. That there are brilliant and insightful
teachers cannot be denied, but that there are also a few foolish
ones who impact far too many students in an adverse fashion is
equally undeniable. It is this class who cause the younger players
to think in such a uniform way that they believe things about
which clarinet is the best, and what mouthpiece one must have,
and which reed is the only usable one, and whose ligature must
be bought, etc., etc., etc.

I'm going to bed. My teeth hurt from clenching them.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================