Klarinet Archive - Posting 000530.txt from 2001/02

From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] beginning student
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 18:11:05 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sharon S. Fuller [mailto:ssfworthy@-----.com]
>
> I haven't posted on the list before. I am a new general music and band
> teacher in an elementary school. I agree that the mouthpieces
> that come with
> the beginner and rental clarinets are so incredibly varied that I can't be
> sure what reeds strengths are best. Next school year, I am thinking of
> asking all the parents to buy the same basic mouthpiece. Does anyone have
> any experience with "requiring" a mouthpiece?
>

I'm sure it depends on your school situation. If it's an affluent enough
student body, you might consider trying to get the local vendor to supply a
better quality mouthpiece in the rental instruments before your kids even
get them. But that will raise the rental fee, more than likely, and the
vendor will be hesitant to order the mouthpieces unless you can give him a
pretty clear idea of how many you expect that he'll need. You can certainly
recommend one or even several better quality mouthpieces, but you won't then
have solved the problem of inconsistency. You will have _some_ of the kids
playing on decent mouthpieces.

Since the purpose of a rental program is to get kids started at the least
possible expense, getting upgraded mouthpieces in the rentals may be
impractical, especially if your kids' parents are on their own to find their
own rental vendor. Many parents have already convinced themselves the
instrument is going back in four months. so requiring them to buy an
additional mouthpiece after paying for a rental on an instrument may be
impossible. You'll have more headaches than you want trying to "enforce"
your "requirement", and you'll still end up with a hodge-podge of different
mouthpieces.

Better just to try to figure out as you go which kids sound better on which
reed strength and tell them to buy that strength next time they go to the
store for reeds.

Karl Krelove

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