Klarinet Archive - Posting 000595.txt from 2001/01

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: [kl] Re-facing results
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 19:33:38 -0500

We have discussed re-facing recently. Perhaps some of you will be
interested to hear about the results when Roger Garrett re-faced my 5RV
for me. I'm not trying to do a commercial here, just to give an
example.

[keeping in mind, of course, that the results almost certainly will
vary from one individual to the next and from one mouthpiece to the
next]

On Roger's measuring instruments, my mouthpiece was:

1.08 tip
5
11
22
36

Roger told me that the advertised measurements are:

1.04 tip
6
12
22
34

I'm not going to quote Roger's email, but in general he said that when
he played my mouthpiece, he felt as though it wanted to squeak even
though it didn't. For me, it squeaked so frequently that I had put it
aside on my teacher's recommendation.

Roger was not satisfied with this mouthpiece until he had enlarged the
tip opening to 1.14. I expect that he did other things to it as well,
though proprietary information is involved, I'm sure. When you
consider that 'main line' mouthpieces advertise themselves as varying
from 1.02 to 1.20, moving from 1.08 to 1.14 is a significant move,
namely 1/3 of the variation between the smallest and the largest opening
'normal' opening. And I presume that some physical dimensions affect
pitch and tone and resistance in an exponential way, perhaps even
discontinuous.

So how does it play now?

Even to an amateur such as myself, and after only 5 minutes of playing,
the mouthpiece is immeasurably less stuffy and easier breathing, and the
squeaks are gone unless I mess up in a big way with my embouchure or
covering of holes.

Roger tells me that he raised the pitch of my mouthpiece a bit. I think
I can hear it myself (based on my memory of what it was before), and my
tuner that I use frequently certainly agrees. But since my own
intonation is wobbly, I can't quantify the difference. With the
re-faced 5RV, I am still flat sometimes and sharp other times, and
therefore the change is not overpowering for me.

All told, Roger, I am glad that I did it (or should I say "that you did
it for me"?) It certainly indicates (once again) how much variation
there is between individual mouthpieces and individual embouchures and
the results that are available if you want to tinker with them. Now I
have two mouthpieces that are different, but both of them are playable.
This is a luxury that I never had before.

Thanks again, Roger,
-Bill

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