Klarinet Archive - Posting 000284.txt from 2006/08

From: Adam Michlin <amichlin@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] $650 mouthpieces and Other equiptment.
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 04:14:05 -0400

A few true stories either told to me or that transpired during the
Atlanta Fest which somewhat relate...

Ed Riley told me a story from his Juilliard days of meeting up with
Joe Allard to pick a clarinet. Joe picked up the first clarinet,
played it, and said, "I don't think you'll find a better clarinet
than this." Ed, of course, was quite disappointed that he wasn't
going to get to spend hours trying out equipment, but later realized
the difference between a player who has to compare instruments and
choose a relatively good clarinet and a player who has an absolute
standard and knows a good instrument immediately.

I promised a student of mine that I would pick up a Vandoren
mouthpiece for him. Now I'm the first to acknowledge the
inconsistencies in Vandoren mouthpieces, which I accept as part of
the low price, but I really had no interest in trying out mouthpieces
in the cacophony that was the vendor area. So I went to one of the
people working at the Vandoren booth and asked to buy a mouthpiece.
Well, I was treated very coldly and passed on to another sales person
who treated me equally coldly. It got to the point where I thought
maybe they weren't selling mouthpieces and asked, "I just want to buy
a mouthpiece. You are selling them, right?". Well, at that point the
sales person realized he had been hearing "try" not "buy"
(understandable) and responded, "You just want to *buy* a
mouthpiece?!?". Suddenly I was treated like royalty. I should add
that I have no hard feelings against the Vandoren people, I can't
even imagine what 4 days of working the Vandoren booth would do to my
psyche. I wasn't doing so well after 1 hour, myself!

The final story I'm going to tell because the people involved would
probably never trumpet (clarinet?) their own horn, so to speak. Mike
Lomax made Andy Firth a new mouthpiece on the afternoon of the
featured concert with the ASO. Andy then played said mouthpiece on
the concert that night. When Andy told this us this after the
concert, we all thought he was crazy, but his response was (I'm
paraphrasing here) that Mike's mouthpieces are masterpieces and he
had no concern at all. I think the concert went well (understatement)
and have no doubt Mike makes wonderful mouthpieces, but I also think
Andy would still be a genius on a Bundy with a $10 mouthpiece.

It just ain't the equipment...

-Adam
http://www.michlinmusic.com
http://www.joeallard.org

PS: The Backun booth had my favorite sign at the Fest (I really wish
I had gotten the exact wording down, perhaps someone can help) :

"Please don't play the Mozart on Bb Clarinet, some of us have perfect pitch".

At 08:49 PM 8/20/2006, Tski1128@-----.com wrote:
>I just returned from the ICA Atlanta fest, and once again I have the same
>opinion that I've had the last few times, that is utter
>disbelief. Disbelief
>that clarinetist are totally incapable of evaluating their own
>playing and the
>equipment involved.

[...]

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