Klarinet Archive - Posting 000141.txt from 2004/07

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Lyle mouthpiece (was: [kl] Content in klarinet)
Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2004 21:07:52 -0400


Tony Wakefield wrote,
>Tony Pay suggested recently that subscribers
>who ask questions about reed strengths and
>mouthpiece comparisons were less interesting
>than our more specific and detailed contributions
>containing real information. This is what is always
>happening in normal life everywhere: even in high
>intellectual circles, detailed discussion can end in
>some form of ridicule, and laughter. We ask these
>well meant questions, albeit basic, because we want
>to learn. They would not be asked otherwise. I will
>hazard a guess and say that these kind of enquiries
>come from the less experienced players, who are only
>wanting to discover how others play, and set up. So I
>see nothing wrong with tolerating these posts, and
>occasionally contributing with some useful answers.

Well, good! Glad to hear it! Thank you! And, at risk of ridicule and
laughter, I'm an amateur and I'll put my ignorance up against just about
anybody's, so here's an equipment (quit snoring!) question: "Was you ever
bit by a dead bee?" -- er, oops, wrong movie. I meant: Ever heard of a
Lyle mouthpiece? Who is (or was) Lyle? I couldn't find any references in
the Archives.

I just acquired a Lyle mouthpiece, as part of a $25 package with an old
metal Bb clarinet, a C. G. Conn double wall, with hybrid keywork (Albert
system but with some additional Boehm-type keys), from about 1895, if the
serial number is correct. (In good condition, the Conn would have been an
exciting find, but it's a decrepit "parts horn," with two missing keys and
other problems. I'm not going to mess with it. I only bought it in order
to flip it for the same price to a collector I know, whom I trust not to
turn it into a lamp.) However, the Lyle mouthpiece is much more recent
than the old clarinet, and wasn't made for it or even used with it, since
the tenon, made for a modern barrel, has a diameter too large to fit into
the Conn's metal neck socket.

The mouthpiece rouses my curiosity in part because it's a good one, and in
part because it's so obviously lost its context. The construction is black
hard rubber, with an oblong bore. The rubber hasn't turned even slightly
green, one reason why I think this may be a fairly recent mouthpiece.
(Fortunately, the dealer sets up in an underground parking garage.) It's
so black and so shiny that I assumed it was plastic until I noticed it felt
warmer than plastic, and tried the "rub and sniff" test. It's marked only
with the embossed logo "Lyle" in unusually large script lettering (looks
like a signature) colored pale gold, across the back, with small block
letters "MO" embossed (but not color filled) in a corner next to the bottom
of the table. Next to that same corner, the cut of the table is slightly
lopsided, but this slip doesn't matter, since not even the longest reed
would come down that far. Where it matters, the workmanship looks precise,
inside and out. I take it that "MO" stands for "medium open," since it is
in fact a medium open mouthpiece, with about average resistance. It plays
well, with no freaky characteristics. The back is superficially scratched
up in a way that's characteristic of damage from an inverted Bonade
ligature, although the only ligature and cap with the setup were the
originals from the vintage Conn.

Come to think of it, maybe I was too quick to brag about the my depth of my
ignorance -- perhaps not quite of the same professional caliber as that
flea market dealer's ignorance, I have to admit. The old clarinet's corks
are so rotted that this dealer managed to connect the upper stack to the
lower stack upside down: trill key levers overlapping the neck and topmost
trill key down by the center joint. Now, that's something I don't see
every weekend.

Lelia Loban
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban
Re-defeat Bush in 2004!

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