Klarinet Archive - Posting 000411.txt from 1996/09

From: "Fogle, Bill" <bill.fogle@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: mouthpiece profile
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 15:11:43 -0400

Greg asks about matching reed tip with mouthpiece tip.

-->Ben Armato's wonderful "Perfect-a-Reed" book (which I highly recomend to
anyone
-->looking for a good reed book) recomends rounding the corners of a reed to
match
-->the curve of the mouthpiece . . . By the way, most of the Van Doren
-->reeds that I use seem to have TOO MUCH of a curve for my Genusa mouthpiece.

The advantage of playing a single mouthpiece is the possibility of learning
to adjust reeds "perfectly" (as much as the reed permits this). It does not
seem to me to be difficult to devise, physically, a method for doing this
using the
"quarter & burn", fine sandpaper, or mechanical trimmer. I can't make a
commitment to one mouthpiece (as I can to a ligature). As a result, it
becomes
*quite* challenging preparing reeds, keeping in mind the inevitable and
widely
varying physical properties of tip, facing, etc. I am still trying to find a
way to label
reeds successfully as to which mouthpiece I have adjusted them to play on.
Of
course, nothing written here touches on the subject of the variance of tone
and
response brought about by delicately *positioning* the reed on the
mouthpiece
table (lay). Oh God, details, details, details . . . .
-----Bill F.