Klarinet Archive - Posting 000424.txt from 1999/11

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Crappy mouthpieces
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 13:36:52 -0500

--- GrabnerWG@-----.com wrote:

> ...if you take measuring tools to ten stock mouthpiece of the same brand
> and model, you are likely to get ten wildly differing sets of measurements.

This is merely an objective fact, Walter, and it is not possible to infer
that this measurement variation has any subjective interpretation attached
to it (read the whole message before the knee-jerk response kicks in). It's
like people who instinctively bristle at the term "discrimination" because,
in their closed little worlds, the term can only refer to a denial of rights
to somebody on an unfair standard of comparison. But hey, if every single
human being on the plant didn't discriminate in pretty much every area of
their lives, then nobody would have desires or preferences, and we would
still be a society of hunter/gatherers, "following the food" as it were.
Nobody would be interested in innovating.

Granted, when it comes to mouthpieces, we tend to think that two 5RV's will
have the same measurements, but the fact that they don't does not mean that
either or both of them are "garbage." It just means that they are different,
and that's as far as you can take it until somebody plays them and decides
which one they like better. Mouthpiece companies may be misrepresenting
themselves by putting the same name on thousands of mouthpieces, as if each
of them were identical (i.e.; the thousands of 5RV's that Vandoren makes) --
they're doing the best they can with mass-production equipment. For those
who reject this premise, then the PRACTICE of naming all of them 5RV's qual-
ifies as "garbage", but the mouthpieces themselves cannot be called so. Why?
Well, personally, I played on a 5RV-Lyre for years -- you know, one of those
thousands of inconsistent 5RV-Lyres that Vandoren has produced over the years
-- and I was quite happy with it. The fact that there were other 5RV-Lyres
with different measurements from my own did not rob me of the satisfaction
I derived from the one I happened to own. I knew then, as I know now, that
another 5RV-Lyre would probably play slightly differently from my own, but
this was immaterial. I knew without a doubt that my own 5RV-Lyre was not
garbage. In a sense, you could say that mouthpiece companies have automated
the custom mouthpiece creation process because, according to your own obser-
vation, two "identical" mouthpieces are not.

Do custom mouthpiece makers have an incentive to bash mass producers of
the product in an effort to steer consumers toward their niche in the
market? Do new entrants into that niche market have an even greater
incentive to do so?

-- Neil
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

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