Klarinet Archive - Posting 000433.txt from 2000/02
From: Shouryu Nohe <jnohe@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] So what happened to the table?
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 21:07:11 -0500
This is a mouthpiece question.
Not long after I started at NMSU, a good buddy of mine wanted to push me
forward as a saxophonist. I shrugged him off, but when he offered to let
me try his marching band mpc, I decided to see what it could do. It was a
Meyer 5M. I learned this by looking at the table - on it was inscribed a
triangle, in which was further inscribed
5
Meyer
M
and I really liked this mouthpiece. So much so that I bought one of my
own, even though at the time, I had no aspirations of becoming a serious
saxophonist. And for two and a half years (or so), I've played the mpc
for jazz quite happily. When it was decided that I should become a minor,
and as a result, I bought a Caravan mpc. I also love it to death - so
much so, that I played exclusively on it for about a month. After having
my fill of the rich chocolatey sounds I was getting with the Caravan, and
feeling well aquainted with its nuances, I decided to use both as needed,
now that I knew both sufficiently well.
Problem. The Meyer wasn't working all of a sudden. And I couldn't
understand it. I hadn't altered any aspect of my embouchure (at least not
that I was aware of). I didn't suffer in such an aspect when switching
between two familiar setups on clarinet or bass clarinet - what was
happening here? This wonderful RC Meyer (yeah, I spent the extra ten
bucks; doesn't sound much different, though...) which produced the lovely,
MELLOW jazz sound I liked without the buzz and overwhelming brightness of
other jazz mpcs was playing like a dog. It buzzed, it squeaked, it didn't
speak in some registers. And with each rehearsal for basketball band, I
would pull it out and give it a shot, and within 15 minutes, I was playing
the Caravan again. It couldn't be the horn - Caravan was playing fine.
Couldn't be the reeds - they responded in all registers on the Caravan.
And in frustration, I stuffed that Meyer in my gigbag, where it has sat,
doomed, since September.
Today, I found a website containing a RA file of a piece called Tank! that
I'm really into. It's actually an opening theme for a Japanese TV show,
and the show has a short one minute version of the song when you watch it.
The RA file was the 3 min version from the soundtrack, containing a solo
that blew me away. (You can listen; it's here:
http://zerog.simplenet.com/kanno/cowboy.html )
I then left for basketball band rehearsal, bound and determind to make the
Meyer work. And for almost an hour, I fought and fought and fought. And
in the last half hour, I blew dry air through my horn, and just fingered,
having lost all hope. As I took the reed off of the mpc, I suddenly
noticed something out of the ordinary - the table of my mpc was WET. Not
damp, from having a wet reed on it, but there was a full layer of water or
saliva on it. I'd never seen that before, on any mpc, on any of my
instruments. And when I wiped the moisture away, I realized that
something else was out of the ordinary - the diamond inscribed on the
table was no longer present.
I just so happened to be sitting next to that friend who lent me his Meyer
those years back. I asked to see his table. The diamond was still
present, and clear as it was three years ago. Not only that, but he's
been playing his Meyer about four years longer than I've been playing
mine. I leaned over to the saxist on my opposite side, also playing a
Meyer, her's about eight years old. She revealed that her diamond was
also still present.
So all you mouthpiece people out there...where did my diamond vanish to?
I know it was there at one point - I recall showing someone that my mpc
was indeed a 5M (they felt it wasn't bright enough to be a 5, but a 6)
with that diamond. Why was the table sopping WET? And do these reasons
account for my beloved Meyer no longer functioning?
J. Shouryu Nohe
http://web.nmsu.edu/~jnohe
Professor of SCSM102, New Mexico State Univ.
"If I wanted a 'job,' I'd have gone music ED, thank you very much!"
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