Klarinet Archive - Posting 000052.txt from 2003/08

From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Mouthpiece Patches
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2003 12:01:47 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marcia S. Bundi [mailto:mbundi@-----.com]
>
> I was testing mouthpieces and Lori Lovato had me listen to her play on
> *my* setup with and without the patch, and the difference in clarity and
> timbre of sound was very noticeable! It was quite obvious that the sound
> is indeed muffled by a standard mouthpiece patch and I really needed to
> get rid of it.
>

That there was a difference in how Lori sounded with and without a patch is
something we can't argue - you were there and heard it. But it's anything
but "obvious" that the reason is because the patch itself "muffled" the
sound or that using a patch necessarily does anything else to the sound
directly.

I think if the patch is thick enough (as most of the commercially made ones
are) the result is almost certainly a slight re-shaping of the embouchure
and oral cavity - very similar to the shaping players often feel when using
a double lip approach. This is not an acoustical result (damping of some
sort) of the presence of the patch, but rather of the change in the player.
Whether this change is for the better or turns out to be a destructive
distortion depends entirely on the player's reaction to the additional
thickness.

When I first began to use mouthpiece patches, they weren't the thick affairs
that are generally available today as commercial products. We cut up the
thin rubber work gloves that were available in hardware stores at the time
(there's probably a short discussion of this in the archives somewhere - it
came up once years ago among a few of us on the list) and used pieces of it
hand-cut to shape. Gigliotti didn't even use cement or adhesive - just wet
it, put it on the mouthpiece, and let it dry for a few minutes. Later a thin
cloth-based double sided tape was marketed by Mystic that held the patch on
more reliably (paper based carpet tapes seem to fall apart from the constant
moisture). The total thickness of the rubber and the tape was far less than
that of modern Runyon or Yamaha patches, and as I remember it, they caused
very little embouchure change.

A player, with a little attention to the differences in the "fit" of the
mouthpiece in the mouth, can produce the same result with or without a
patch, even a modern commercial one. My experience is that use of a rubber
patch on one's mouthpiece is strictly a matter of comfort. In my own case
the vibrations of the mouthpiece cause discomfort and even at times pain in
my top teeth. Other players find greater stability with a patch. I know many
excellent players who use mouthpiece patches with no degradation to their
tone quality. Anyone who wants the comfort without the adjustment might try
to find the kind of thin rubber those gloves were made of (I haven't seen
the gloves in years). A little rubber cement will hold the material on.

My nickel's worth -

Karl Krelove

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