Klarinet Archive - Posting 001092.txt from 1999/04

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] mouthpiece crud]
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:35:59 -0400

Rich Gordley wrote,
>>I taught Jr High band for 11 years and developed a very effective way of
getting the kids to clean the mouthpiece/reed. When having a group class
for beginners, at some point someone always is having some sort of trouble
with tone production. This is a great opportunity to check the
read/mouthpiece setup. When finding a particularly "green" specimen you
simply make the appropriate retching sound and shove it under ANOTHER
student's nose and say "would you put THIS in YOUR mouth?" A student can
put his own crud in his mouth, but HATES being exposed to someone else's
crud....do this a few times and the students start to police each other
hoping to prevent a close encounter with mouthpiece flora.>>

Best suggestion I've ever seen. My teacher used to display icky reeds to
the whole class, but your method makes the demonstration so much more
personal that I'll bet it works, instead of becoming a form of entertainment
as his method did.

When I buy a dirty old mouthpiece, I never imagine the previous owner as a
handsome, sexy fellow. I never fantasize that using his mouthpiece is sorta
like kissing him (no disrespect to my husband intended). No, I judge him by
the guck he left behind and imagine him as some squalid degenerate with
trenchmouth and every other disease in the Merck manual, combined with a
pathological fear of dentistry. The handsome clarinetist who shared the
stand with me in high school orchestra kept his reeds and mouthpiece clean,
but if he'd ever shown me a stinky, gummy-green reed, he would have changed
my perception of him instantly. I probably never would have felt attracted
to him again. (Which probably would have suited him fine....)

Lelia
(just don't inspect my kitchen floor too closely)

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