Klarinet Archive - Posting 000329.txt from 2004/07

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Mouthpiece/Reeds
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 19:05:54 -0400


Walter Grabner wrote,
>If yours reeds don't respond they way they used to,
>it's possible that the mouthpiece specs have changed.
>There is scientific as well as anecdotal evidence
>that mouthpiece measurements can "drift" over a
>period of time.

I wonder how hard rubber marching band mouthpieces fare over the course of
a football season or two or three, compared to mouthpieces that rarely go
outdoors. One day in full, hot sunlight is all it takes to ruin a hard
rubber dipping pen or fountain pen. Vintage pens were made (and replicas
are still made) of thinner rubber than mouthpieces, but it's the same type
of rubber. I imagine it doesn't take long to accidentally re-face a
mouthpiece, if a dealer displays a clarinet for sale outdoors with the case
open or if a musician dries the mouthpiece by leaving it sitting out in the
sunlight or under a hot lamp.

My husband collects pens. Several times, he's suggested that a dealer not
display hard rubber pens in full sunlight outdoors. Dealers usually react
rudely to such suggestions. I remember one dealer in particular, at a
Renninger's Extravaganza in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, who pooh-poohed this
advice. Kevin also suggested that the dealer lay the rubber pens out flat,
instead of leaving them jumbled with miscellaneous merchandise in a cigar
box. By the end of a long summer day in a broiling-hot, open field, these
vintage hard rubber pens had bent over whatever was under them, and had
gone banana-shaped.

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

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