Klarinet Archive - Posting 000194.txt from 2009/02

From: Michael Nichols <mrn.clarinet@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Brahms quintet
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:00:38 -0500

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 3:57 AM, Joseph Wakeling
<joseph.wakeling@-----.net> wrote:

> Is that on a regular French mouthpiece ... ? How does it change things
> (besides responsiveness)?

Yes. That was on a regular French mouthpiece. Two, in fact. I first
tried using them when I had a Gigliotti P34, and that combination of
reed and mouthpiece worked quite well. It didn't work quite as well
on my current mouthpiece, which is an Eddie Daniels/Zinner mouthpiece.
I'm thinking that's because the side rails are a little wider apart on
the Daniels than on the Gigliotti--you sometimes get a little
momentary chirpy sound when tonguing low notes (although otherwise the
sound was quite nice). Of course I only had a couple of White Masters
left when I tried using them on the Eddie Daniels, so I can't say for
sure if another box would have worked better. But on both
mouthpieces, they were quite responsive--that did not change. I'll
probably buy another box of them soon so I can use them on my Eb, if
nothing else.

The White Masters are probably a little brighter in sound than French
reeds, but I wouldn't call them thin or shrill, either. "Resonant" is
probably the best way to describe the way they behaved for me in terms
of sound.

Richard Stoltzman used to use them on a French mouthpiece, too (don't
know if he still does). I don't always agree with his musical
interpretations, but I can't fault him on tone quality or on his
ability to control the instrument, so clearly it's possible to get
very good results with these sorts of reeds on the right French
mouthpiece.

I haven't tried the Black Masters (the Austrian variety of Vandorens),
but they're supposed to be somewhere in between White Masters and
French reeds in terms of width. Right now I'm playing on a box of
Grand Concert Evolutions, which are surprisingly responsive for
French-style reeds--I don't know if that means there's something about
them that's similar to the German reeds or if they get their
responsive qualities some other way. They're definitely not as narrow
or as short-vamped as the White Masters. The White Masters look
noticeably smaller than everything else I've played.

------------------------------------------------------------------
The 2009 Woodwind.Org Donation Drive is going on right now - see
https://secure.donax-us.com/donation/ for more information.
------------------------------------------------------------------