Klarinet Archive - Posting 000078.txt from 2006/10
From: Tski1128@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] backun barrels
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 12:13:02 -0400
In a message dated 10/6/2006 10:27:02 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
ghuba@-----.com writes:
aftermarket equipment is often a way to LEARN
and PROGRESS faster
The only way to learn and progress faster is to listen to lots of music, and
have the clarinet in your hands a lot. Great equipment is like traveling a
paved road instead of a dirt road. But you still have to be on the road trying
to get somewhere. You first need to know where you are at this very moment.
You can only find out what works for you by first knowing what you want a
bell barrel mouthpiece to do, and have a method to figure out if it's working.
I keep hearing I'm a "Backun" artist, but so is anyone playing Morrie's
products. I play them because, for me, I know they sound better. I also feel they
make playing, for me, easier. Will they do that for you? I don't have a clue.
I will make this statement: I have worked the Backun booth for a few of the
ICA and O.K. symposiums, 85% of the people I've heard play in the exhibit
hall know absolutely nothing about the adjusting reeds. Most are blowing on
boards! No mouthpiece be it vintage rubber, imported from Vancouver or bought
from a collector of vintage Kaspers, will play with a non adjusted, unbalanced
reed. I've watch people pick up a well designed mouthpiece, slap the crappy
reed from what ever mouthpiece they play and pronounce a mouthpiece "crap" or
not worth the money. So now lets try the barrel and bell maybe that will fix
the reed? Yea right!
We are living in a Claritopea, manufacturers are fixing problems that have
been around for 50-60 years. As a group of musicians we need to get our acts
together to be able to evauate and communicate about all this new "stuff"
But here goes, these are the truths that Tom Puwalski hold to be totally
evident.
1. Iggy Gennusa's Chedevile wasn't a very good mouthpiece. His early
Gennusa mouthpieces sounded and tuned much better! I have a tape of him playing
both from 1983 and admitting it.
2. "Do I need that $700 Kasper on Ebay?" NO!
3. Good players sound good, bad players sound bad(what ever they're playing
mouthpiece wise)
4. People will always give opinions about equipment they haven't played
5. Tom Puwalski is just as full of crap and the next person on this list!!
(but I'll admit it)
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with
The Atonement, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most
recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a
Masters in
Clarinet performance
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