Klarinet Archive - Posting 000040.txt from 1996/11

From: Frank Madison <fmadison@-----.NET>
Subj: Mouthpiece Mania
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1996 16:04:19 -0500

Well I am glad to be back having spent the last few months doing crazy
experiments on clarinet equiptment. Anyway I have some friends that have
a Cryo Machine that can take any object from room temperature to -300
degrees F at a rate of .01 degrees per minute and then thaw it back to
room temperature. This process compresses all the molecules of an object
very close together and by thawing the object back the molecules move
back evenly away from each other. This reliefs the stress from the
object causing a super tempering to occur. On certain metal it causes
them to become stronger, smoother and more resistant to wear and tear. A
disposable Bic shaver lasted me 4 months without any problems.(hehe)

Anyway you can see where this is leading to (better and closer
shaves??), nope lets take a mouthpiece instead. No need to speculated I
already dipped the sucker in the nitro. The main fear of mine was that
the facing or the dimentions of the mouthpiece would change (warp). The
mouthpiece was not damaged at all, instead the darn thing plays better
than ever. The reponse was better and the resistance was less when
blowing. Overall the mouthpiece resonates better and because of this
tempering I expect the mouthpiece facing to last at least 5 times more
than the average joe mouthpiece.

This is not fiction but fact this process has been avaliable to brass
muscians for years now and the process has been perfected. Until now
nobody has been crazy enough to do this on hard rubber
mouthpieces,reeds, ligatures and yes a Buffet R-13 clarinet (hehehehe).
All the above has been done and right now I am in the process of
writing my report to the company on my findings.

This is all for now but I offer a tip of the week.

Please keep your stored colection of Kaspar or Chedeville mouthpieces in
a vaccum pack bag or jar. The rubber of the mouthpiece interacts with
the oxygen and oxidizes. Check the bumper of any old car and you can see
that the rubber is discolored and brittle. The rubber of the mouthpiece
becomes discolored and brittle thus forever destroying that mouthpiece
because it wont vibrate the way it did when it was new. So run out and
get a Pump N Seal and seal up those precious mouthpieces before they
die.

This has been a public service from the Underground Clarinet Network.