Klarinet Archive - Posting 000616.txt from 2004/03

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@------.net>
Subj: [kl] [clarinet] Lipstick and mp
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 08:17:32 -0500

Anne Lenoir wrote,
>I have not had "alligator lips" since Steve Hartman
>turned me on to "Lipshtick". Apparently, a lot of
>musicians in NYC use it. ANNIE

Like a lot of the women responding on this thread, and probably a lot of
female reed players in general, I don't wear lipstick. I keep a
purse-sized tube of Vaseline in the rummage kit near my practice stand, but
when I finish practicing a with sore lip, instead of hunting around for
that little tube, often as not I just pick up and use what's already in
plain sight: the cork grease. Works fine.

Usually I'm a stickler for cleanliness and product safety and all that
jazz, but it doesn't often occur to me to wonder what cork grease is made
of. It *looks* clean and it *tastes* clean, and the labels haven't got any
"Never, never, never put your fingers in your mouth after you grease your
corks, or else you'll die twitching and foaming at the mouth" warnings, and
I think of cork grease as lip balm with a different label -- but none of my
cork grease has an ingredients list. Hmm, maybe I should wonder. Rendered
roadkill? Gleanings from fast food franchise waste fat barrels? Recycled
gear lube?

The sore lip is becoming a problem since my husband retired from the EPA in
December and opened a home business. I can't practice when I know anybody
can hear me. He's home most of the time now. (Yeah, I know -- I'm nuts.
It's not as if I'm playing anything anybody's itching to hear anyway. If I
did practice in my attic when he's down in his dungeon, he'd probably turn
up his stereo in order *not* to hear me. But still....) I can practice
piano (electronic) with earphones, but I'm getting grossly out of practice
on wind instruments. Whenever I know he'll be gone for at least an hour, I
take out a clarinet or a saxophone, but since I'm not practicing regularly
any more, I'm getting very well acquainted with alligator lips when I do
put in a good session. Oh well. Less practice means less cork grease to
ingest, right...?

Lelia Loban
E-mail: lelialoban@------.net
Web site (original music scores as audio or print-out):
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban