Klarinet Archive - Posting 000212.txt from 1999/02

From: Neil Leupold <nleupold@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Evette Clarinets
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:18:12 -0500

On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, Frederick S. Sterns wrote:

> Maybe the secret to optimizing the plastic clarinet is merely to be
> selective with the barrel, mouthpiece, and reed. Nothing beyond that!

In college, my friend and I were alternating principal and Eb clarinet
players in the wind ensemble (i.e.; we'd swap roles with each other to
equalize the load of Eb playing we each had to do). The wind ensemble
went on tour somewhere in the mountains where it was snowing (near Lake
Tahoe, I think), and we refused to take our relatively new Prestige R-13
instruments with us for fear that the temperature/humidity change might
damage them. The music director was livid with us, thinking we were
sacrificing the quality of our performance by playing on old student-
model instruments from high school. Stupidly, I forgot my professional
mouthpiece when we embarked on the tour, so I was relegated to playing
on a stock Buffet mouthpiece that my friend brought along for grins.
In those days, I was practicing nearly 8 hours a day, and both my co-
principal and I were surprised to find that I could get the exact
same beautiful sound out of this completely inferior setup as I got
out of my new Buffet instruments and professionally refaced Borbeck.
I had reached a point of such relaxation and flexibility through
practice, it was not a great stretch to adapt to the different in-
strument and mouthpiece. It didn't feel as nice, but I proved the
music director's fears of lowered performance quality to be unjusti-
fied.

In the end, I believe the greatest tool in clarinet playing to be
the player. The type of instrument, mouthpiece, and reed being used
are -- barring extremely flawed functionality -- mostly a matter of
personal preference. We all remember the threads on how bad Artley
student clarinets are, and that's what I played while on tour. It
was a ghastly instrument, but by conditioning physical relaxation
into my performance technique, there was great flexibility for me
to adapt when the time came. In the developmental stages, I do
believe it is a great boon to have a high quality instrument, but
after a certain level, even an Artley with a stock Buffet mouth-
piece will suffice in a pinch (without actually pinching!). Wasn't
it John Yeh who looked at his mouthpiece one day, when questioned
about his setup, and shrugged, "Hmph, I dunno. I just play the
mouthpiece that came with my clarinet..."? I love that story.

Neil

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