Klarinet Archive - Posting 000002.txt from 2003/11

From: GrabnerWG@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Interesting experience
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 11:06:42 -0500

This week I had an interesting experience and I'm still trying to draw conclusions from it.

Tuesday morning a man I'll call George visited my workshop. He had called several times and was quite eager to get an appointment to come in and try some mouthpieces.

When he got here, he pulled out an ancient pair of Albert system clarinets and proceeded to explain that he played in a Greek band. He had just had a bad accident chipping his wood mouthpiece and was in urgent need of something else. He had tried quite a few mouthpieces at a local music store but found nothing he liked.

I had him play a little for me. It was amazing. Never in my life could I play what he was playing. Scoops, trills, chirps, sliding from one note to another seamlessly, using scales I could only dream of. It was quite beautiful, if not mezmerizing.

I explained to him that I might not be able to help, as my mouthpieces are intended for symphonic playing. He shrugged and proceded to try a few.

Well, obviously, the mouthpieces with the closest tip opennings were not going to work. I also tried him on a "jazz" mouthpiece, made from the Zinner "E" blank, the one with the high baffle. Although it played well for him, he didn't like the sound, too bright.

He then played on several of my angled wall mouthpieces. Voila', he was able to do everything he wanted, all the scoops, glisses, slides, trills, etc.

Mind you, this is as about middle of the road mouthpiece as I make. No 1.20 tip opening or anything like that.

I had thought he would need a speciality mouthpiece made, but no! He scooped up two of the warmest sounding ones and proceeded to pay cash

What was really, really interesting was that he was able to take a very normal or typical piece of equipment, make it sound VERY different from how you or I would make it sound. AND he was totally comfortable with it in a few minutes.

It proves again, that the sound we make is the sound our ears WANT us to make.

Walter Grabner
www.clarinetxpress.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org