Klarinet Archive - Posting 000423.txt from 2000/10

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Changes to Elite and other Buffets
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 14:21:07 -0400

<><> Roger=A0Shilcock wrote:
It seems to me that the differences in reed properties smudge over an
awful lot of these differences between mouthpieces in the real-world
situation where you actually want to *buy* one.

I agree to some extent, and it's going to take me a few days to
digest Roger Garrett's reply (thank you for it, RogerG !!); but I just
finished taking three specimens of the same model of mouthpiece on trial
and returning two of them. I kept them for the full two weeks, and I
was very careful to place the pads identically on each mouthpiece so
that I couldn't identify them without looking at the stickers that I had
placed on each box. I went so far as to put the stickers on the bottom
of each box in order that I wouldn't see the sticker when I removed a
mouthpiece from its box (not in the same order each day either, I
shuffled the boxes before I opened the first one).
I use four reeds in daily rotation, and I am beginning to adjust
them when I hear something that I think needs adjusting.
The bottom line is that I played each mouthpiece once a day under an
assortment of reed conditions (chromatic scale from low E to high E). I
also kept a daily log of my reaction to each mouthpiece.

At the end of all this, my daily log always said the same thing:
(1) "A" was the easiest blowing, but it had a ragged tone -- I think
that Roger Garrett means something a little different by "edgy" than I
do by "ragged"; (2) "B" was the most resistant mouthpiece, and I had
difficulty reaching the top of the scale, but the "B" tone was
noticeably smoother, especially in the low notes, and therefore I liked
it better; and (3) "C" was a compromise between "A" and "B" in both
respects, ease of blowing and smoothness of tone.
By the way, this is why Roger Garrett's post elicited my question.
I had already decided that you pay a price when you go too far towards
ease of blowing (er, breathing, sorry).
So I accept that reeds and reed adjustments and weather and
moisture and embouchure and player's mood all make a difference (duh!);
but my own experience has convinced me that mouthpiece differences are
reproducible, not just superstitious behavior.

The only thing that changed during my two-week experiment was that
I ended up keeping "B" because, at the end of two weeks, I had lost most
(but not all) of my feeling of difficulty about reaching high E with it,
and I remained constant in my opinion that it sounds the best of the
three. (Who would have guessed? Practice makes a difference.)

I should add that I also played my old mouthpiece each day, but
since the name is embossed on it, I was always aware that I was playing
it rather than one of the three new ones. I have retired my old
mouthpiece to the drawer now.

Cheers,
Bill

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