Klarinet Archive - Posting 000893.txt from 1999/08

From: "Carl Schexnayder" <carlsche@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: WOOD MOUTHPIECES
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 04:05:45 -0400

A quick, dumb question...........
About how long can one expect a wooden mouthpiece to last if it is played
and average of three to four hours per day?

Carl Schexnayder
Director of Bands
St. Amant High School
12035 Highway 431
St. Amant, Louisiana 70774
Phone: (225)621-2564

----- Original Message -----
From: Gregory Smith <Gregory_Smith_Clarinet@-----.com>
Subject: [kl] Re: WOOD MOUTHPIECES

Thank you Cindy for you kind words.

In regard to your question, I do indeed use mouthpiece blanks made
by Hans Zinner of Bavaria in both hard rubber and hardwoods. I have several
sources for fine, aged exotic hardwoods. As mentioned on the first page of
my website, after discovering the standard blank that he produces, I
continued further design and development with Zinner to produce a blank of
my own design. I begin with it unfinished and then extensively hand work
each part (facing, bore, chamber, window, rails, beak, baffle, etc.) until
it evolves to the point that it is a finished mouthpiece.

My teacher, Robert Marcellus, along with other premiere
clarinetists of his day, played and championed Frank Kaspar mouthpieces of
Chicago and Cicero. Once he related to me a conversation he had with Kaspar
about the complexities of mouthpiece making.

Kaspar told him that there are AT LEAST a dozen components to a
mouthpiece that are interdependent on one another in a most exquisite way.
Modifying just 1 of these components effects almost all of the others - the
mouthpiece maker being similar to a juggler that is juggling a dozen balls
in the air at once.

Hand made mouthpieces require blending of both art (sculpting and
playing) and science (acoustics) and is continually evolving. This is the
formula that distinguishes them from machine made mouthpieces.

*********************
Gregory Smith

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