 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2014-01-17 22:04
Thought it might be a fun topic.
Was there ever a mouthpiece that you tried, but couldn't purchase, and you will remember for the rest of your life as being one of, if not the best you've ever played? Could have been a friend's mouthpiece they wouldn't sell, one that cost too much money, one that you just couldn't justify buying at the time, etc. Maybe after all this time, since you can't compare it, it's become MORE of a legend in your mind than it really was, but you'll NEVER forget (or even worse, you'll always REGRET) that mouthpiece not coming home with you.....
Mine? I think it was around fall of 2003. Just moved back home from college, picked up the clarinet and started to get back into it. Had my clarinet, was using a B45 from high school, and always played in my room. Discovered this bulletin board and was trying out different pieces of equipment with Woodwind and Brasswind's trial policy (pay I think around 30 bucks on credit card, could try a mouthpiece, and they only charged the mouthpiece when you didn't return it.)
I ordered a Walter Grabner Chedeville mouthpiece from there. And it was GORGEOUS. I remember playing the intro to the Bernstein Sonata for clarinet and piano and it sounded AMAZING. I remember playing the Milhaud for clarinet, violin, and piano (I was working on movements I and IV) and everything being effortless. Suddenly embouchure was not the problem.
It's probably more of a legend in my own mind at this point, but I regretted A LOT sending it back cause I didn't have the money to purchase it (at the time I believe it was about $185).
I regret it so much that periodically (about every year or so) I send an email to Walter Grabner asking him if he found any old chedevilles or has any plans to bring them back in. And I always get a little dissapointed when he responds that he's sticking with the kaspar blanks. Sigh.
Oh well. Currently playing on a Grabner K11* that I got to select at clarinetfest 2010, and it plays very well. Better than that chedeville? I'll never know......
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: donald
Date: 2014-01-18 04:12
When I was studying for a Masters at University of Oklahoma Dr Etheridge lent me a "Evette-Schaeffer" mouthpiece (Chedeville blank) that had been refaced by Richard Hawkins. I was playing a mouthpiece Brad Behn had made for me using a Miller blank that played brilliantly, fab tone, but was super sharp on my clarinet (and experimenting with barrels didn't help). Three weeks before my recital Dr E lent me this Evette-Schaeffer to use for the concert, and I had to give it back afterwards. It wasn't for sale- and if it had been there's no way I could have afforded it at the time (similar mouthpieces were selling then for $400-$500 US$).
That mouthpiece was the best mouthpiece I ever played.
The Miller, btw, was one of the best SOUNDING mouthpieces I ever played, but it was eventually ruined when another mouthpiece craftsman (not Brad or Hawkins) reamed the bore out to try to drop the pitch (had tried everything else including longer barrels/different taper etc etc). Some years later a colleague of mine showed me HER favourite mouthpiece, that she'd got from her teacher Russel Dagon, and it was also from a Miller blank (worked on by Pyne).
dn
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-01-18 04:22
There was a mouthpiece that accompanied a sketchy old clarinet owned by a fellow high school student. She didn't really intend playing after high school and didn't particularly care for the clarinet in the first place. The mouthpiece happened to be Chicago Kaspar (not sure of the size) that she let me try one day. It was so effortless, and I felt I could just about do anything on that mouthpiece. Once I let my fellow student know that I literally lusted for her mouthpiece, I was the last one on earth she would be willing to sell it to (kids can be so cruel).
Ever since I'd been trying to re-discover another like it. I have come close with Greg Smith's mouthpieces and hope to have settled this angst that I've suffered for more than thirty years in the coming months.
I'll let you know how it turns out.
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-01-18 11:06
Glen Johnston in Los Angeles years ago had some mouthpieces that he got from several of the top Hollywood studio players. One was the RVS (which I believe stands for either Robert Van Soligen or Robert Von Soligen) and a very limited edition (maybe even a prototype) of the Mickey Gillette Model Gregory mouthpiece.
The RVS was a good all-round piece that could play anything and would even let me do a decent Artie Shaw imitation. It was very responsive and let you gliss and slide all over the place but was still a fine legit mouthpiece. The Mickey Gillette piece had a crystal clear, very centered sound. More alto and tenor sax Gillette pieces were made than clarinet pieces. In fact, I've never seen another Gillette for clarinet though I occasionally run across his sax models, so maybe the one Glen had was a prototype?
I just let Glen reface my Ann Arbor Frank Kasper and left. Still sorry I didn't buy an RVS and a Gillette but today I might not like them as much. Time passes; people change.
Postscript-- I later found an RVS and a Gillette. The RVS played only ok after an expensive refacing and the Gillette turned out to be just another Riffault blank. How time changes things and the way we look at them!
Post Edited (2016-05-19 05:06)
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Author: stingaree
Date: 2014-01-18 20:15
In the late 1970's, I was lucky to have a wonderful clarinet teacher, who once let me try several of his mouthpieces and borrow one for my last two years of high school, along with a ligature. I didn't realize what a difference the mouthpiece had made until later, but by then I couldn't remember what kind it was, only that I had used #4 Vandoren reeds on it. I acquired several mouthpieces throughout the years, but none played as good.
Over thirty years later, I happened to see my former teacher at Clarinetfest......but he did not remember me after all that time. :( I was so shocked that I forgot to tell him how much I appreciated all that he had taught me, which I greatly regret.
I'll never know what kind of mouthpiece it was, either.
"To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" Timothy Ferris
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2014-01-18 21:08
Summer of 1990. NOLA. Some Swedish dude was there at a gig I was playing and let me try his wooden Pomarico. Mellow, loud, effortless. Swedish dude would not part with it. Tried other wooden Pomaricos but could never find anything like it.
My playing has progressed since then (I was a teenager at the time), and my embouchure is nowhere near the same. I really doubt it would be as impressive to me today, considering the type of 'piece I now tend to like, and the CTs I now play. So I don't lose any sleep over it, and never have.
Swedish dude, if you're out there--KEEP SWINGIN'! I remember you being a cool guy, really into what we were playing that day. I hope that mouthpiece held up for you! Maybe it was your special teeth marks that made it sing!
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Grabnerwg
Date: 2014-01-19 18:17
Alexi -
A month or so ago I found some blanks of the type that I was using back then when you tried that mouthpiece.
I'll try to duplicate it for you.
Send me your address offline and I'll send you the mouthpiece - no charge!
Walter Grabner
www.clarinetxpress.com
World Class Clarinet Mouthpieces
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Author: TAS
Date: 2014-01-20 08:56
I had three Cicero Kaspers that I sold years ago to the principal clarinet in the National Symphony. I bought them in Mr. Kasper's living room in Cicero, Ill during my high school days.
I kept another two for my own playing.
My current mouthpiece, the Theodore Johnson TJ3 smokes them all, no offense to the legendary Frank Kasper.
TAS
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-01-23 23:17
I just acquired a Greg Smith Kaspar style mouthpiece that is just amazing. I did have one like it some years ago that wound up being my favorite until it met with an unfortunate accident. Once again I chose from amongst the hardwood selections (cocus, african blackwood, and cocobolo) and settled on another cocobolo. It has all the ping and focus I could ask for and has a wonderfully responsive altissimo (a pretty typical characteristic of the well crafted Greg Smith mouthpieces).
I've tried a fair number of mouthpieces over the years (some of the most esoteric out there) and I must say that mouthpiece making (and or refinishing) really comes down to just how well the facings are attended to and how well they are integrated into the total design (all the subtle interactions amongst the baffle, tone chamber, bore and facing).
Greg Smith really knows his how to refine a mouthpiece!
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2014-01-24 01:50
Never played on a wooden mouthpiece. No reason I see it wouldn't work, but it always brings to mind "why not metal?" Metal works for sax. I wonder why it's not tried in clarinets. Ah well.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2014-01-24 12:03
About a year ago I had the chance to play an R13 belonging to a friend. His health is poor and his playing days are well behind him now and I hoped to persuade him to sell it to me. It has a Morgan mouthpiece that, for me, was truly amazing. Playing it on his R13 and my own Imperial was completely effortless throughout the whole range of the instrument. Unfortunately for me, he has decided that the R13 will accompany him into the great beyond, and the same for the mouthpiece.
I have a wood mouthpiece that came with a C Albert system I bought on EBay a couple of years back. It works very well on the clarinet I bought, but not at all well on my more modern Boehm C.
A couple of years back there were some metal clarinet mouthpieces from China on EBay. Don't know anything about them.
In my junkbox I have a Zinner mouthpiece on which the table, rails and tip rail are what appears to be stainless steel and the body hard rubber. It's grooved for a string ligature and has a somewhat pointed beak. Doesn't work very well for me, and I suspect it may be for German reeds, although the tenon is compatible with French system barrels.
Tony F.
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Author: ThatPerfectReed
Date: 2014-01-25 00:07
This discussion makes me wonder what provisions, if any, have been made for the disposition of Stanley Druckler's mouthpieces (may he live to happily play on them another 100 years) when he passes.
Naomi his wife, a very accomplished clarinetist herself, I imagine would be its (along with its backups) recipient should she survive him.
I hope though that he and all clarinetists don't take their hardware to the grave with them, as described in one scenario above. There's just too many people in need of good setups to have it decompose underground (this contributor's opinion at least.)
Music and the instruments it's played on shouldn't die with the musician; it should be carried on--at least I think. No musician is complete without having learned, performed, and past on knowledge--i.e. taught (including equipment).
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-01-25 00:19
Dude, that was COLD!
But I think we need to have a refresher on mouthpieces. If a mouthpiece is being USED for five years or so (of constant, rigorous play), facing dimensions WILL change (disregarding other chips, nicks, teeth gouges etc.).
I think when we talk "OLD" mouthpieces, these are examples that for one reason or another are left mostly un-played over the years (like the proverbial used car owned only by a little old lady from Pasadena).
One more note. I know a fair number of really fine players that are just as "restless" about equipment as the rest of us and look for the next mouthpiece or clarinet with some amount of regularity.
I think we can ALL take heart that we each own at least one piece of gear that Stanley Drucker "would have purchased" if we hadn't gotten there first.
..............................Paul Aviles
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Author: ThatPerfectReed
Date: 2014-01-25 07:46
Sorry to upset Paul.
Mr. Drucker is a wonderful player, with a record setting NY Philharmonic career, a cherished Lelandais mouthpiece, and what I hope is still a happy and long post Philharmonic career ahead of him. I simply meant to say tht I hope good equipment doesn't go to waste, like the story Tony F recounted.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2014-01-25 03:07
I'm not sure that I'd regard my friends choice as "going to waste". He has been a talented amateur musician all his life and has encouraged and helped a great many players along the way. I don't think the loss of one R13 is too high a price for the benefits of his time with us, even though I personally would have wished a different outcome. I may yet persuade him.
Tony F.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2014-01-25 09:42
Fwiw, I've already told my wife I am to be buried with my clarinet and a dumbbell (my two passions - playing clarinet and working out). And I asked for a Dixie band at the funeral to play me off.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-01-25 15:32
My wife has the convenience of burying her husband and her dumbbell at the same time :-)
...................Paul Aviles
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Author: ThatPerfectReed
Date: 2014-01-25 16:09
Tony F.
I COMPLETELY get where you are coming from.
The man you describe, on balance, has apparently given so much to music that to sit in judgement of his desire to be buried with a beloved instrument would be wrong. I hope I haven't offended.
Clearly, we are all affected by our experiences with music, some of mine being the inaccessibility of playable, forget good, instruments for "children of need" to play on in some of our less than privledged school districts in the States.
To get a child to remain motivated in their music studies is hard enough, let alone when their instrument is not performing acceptably. Fortunately, this hurdle is more than compensated for when placing a decent instrument in the hands of a new player, and seeing their face light up with the excitement of knowing "it wasn't me" when they can now hit notes their previously defective instrument would not allow--not to mention their renewed passion for music.
As it regards convincing your friend to pass his hardware on, I leave you with a video segment produced by one of the most well known TV news magazine shows here in the States, on why burying instruments with their players should, IMHO, be reconsidered. If this doesn't change your friend's mind, I'm not sure anything will.
These fine people of Paraguay, importers of trash, turn it into instruments.
/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-recyclers-from-trash-comes-triumph/.
I'll get off my soap box now with apologies to sfalexi. This thread is about "the mouthpiece that never was," not about using my "mouthpiece" to pontificate.
In a perfect world I'd love to try a Lelandais/Chedeville, but I am nonetheless thrilled with my Vandoren B45 and 1950's R13, especially since, as highlighted by this video, it's hardly a perfect world.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-01-25 22:01
ThatPerfectReed,
I get your point albeit a little late. It is perhaps this medium that makes it harder for a sincere point to come across in a way that can be misunderstood.
My wife and I recycle, give to charity, donate to Goodwill, and buy from Goodwill when we can. I would hope that anything usable that we have will continue to be used when we are no longer around to use them.
Adding a name to the concept threw me at first.........my apologies.
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: ThatPerfectReed
Date: 2014-01-26 00:29
Your comments are as gracious as they are unneccessary Paul. Nobody offended me and I appreciate your thoughts, even should a time come when we disagree about something clarinet/musical. ![[happy]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley12.gif)
Now--on the other hand--should you ever take issue that Hulk Hogan wasn't the greatest professional wrestle of all time...well.. ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2014-01-26 01:12
ThatPerfectReed wrote:
"Tony F.
I COMPLETELY get where you are coming from.
The man you describe, on balance, has apparently given so much to music that to sit in judgement of his desire to be buried with a beloved instrument would be wrong. I hope I haven't offended."
Absolutely no offence taken. The news clip is fascinating. Some years ago I saw a similar project in (I think) Nigeria.
Tony F.
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