 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-01-29 22:12
Well, it has now happened twice, and I don't understand how people can be so socially deficient and ill educated.
Recently, I helped someone (a commercial entity friend,) who was purchasing a clarinet from some foreign musicians, to evaluate the instrument.
I took out the mouthpiece I chose to try this instrument with, played it some, took off the mouthpiece, set it on top of my accessories bag, and turned around to talk to my friend about the clarinet in question.
I hear clarinet music, turn around, and see the seller had picked up MY mouthpiece and was playing the clarinet being sold, with MY mouthpiece and MY USED reed, without so much as a, "may I?"
His mouth may have been cleaner than a surgeon's tools before an operation, but his teeth looked dirty, crooked and nasty, and the impression I got was awful, to say the least.
Today, while at another music store looking over some things, I set a saxophone down on top of its case and walked away from it. When I returned about a minute later, there is some guy I've never seen before in my life, playing the sax with MY mouthpiece and MY USED reed.
You all who know me for my spiels may not believe this, but both incidents left me completely speechless at the time they happened, although the second time I eventually became more verbose once I recovered.
What the heck do you say to someone you don't know under those circumstances? Exercising my usual extreme sense of diplomacy and tact (???) I finally asked the guy if he was %$#@*! stupid,
#@! ^&)$ ignorant or just playing the *&$%^@ part. At which he got very insulted.
I'm no fair-haired boy. I spent nine years of my life in combat zones and there were more than a few occasions out in the bush where several of us (of different nationalities, race, creed, religion, color and personal habits) gathered around a tin can or a bowl of food, with only one spoon that we all took turns using without the benefit of washing it first.
Ditto on cigarettes, canteens, candy bars, etc. But these were people whom I, generally, knew and who were there to suffer, live or die with me. Somehow it seemed to make a difference. Perhaps like sharing a soda with your siblings.
I also know that in school, as I did when I was a kid, the students who know each other also share mouthpieces, etc. But the two people who did this to me are total strangers.
With all the diseases and stuff going around out there, I can't understand why someone would do that. The mouthpiece is bad enough, but the used reed too? What the hell do people think (or don’t think) about when they do things like this?
Jeez!
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Author: Bob
Date: 2003-01-29 22:29
These are the same people who sneeze in your face
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Author: ron b
Date: 2003-01-29 22:59
Peter,
Some people, I'm sure, just don't know....
or care :
You conducted yourself remarkably well -- considering.
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Author: Jean
Date: 2003-01-29 23:44
I was at school today to pick up some music when I ran into my instructor who asked me to take a look at her bass clarinet to see if I could figure out what was wrong with it....I said, "You know I have strep throat?!?" I have never in my life seen anyone jump back quite that fast.
No way am I going to try someone's horn with THEIR mouthpiece (mine was at home) sick OR healthy.
I agree about people playing instruments who don't know anything about you. Who knows what is going on inside someone else's mouth....gross. When I was teaching young students they always wanted to try each others' horns....that the whole school didn't come down with something dreadful always amazed me.
I would have said the same $^#$#@ to these two ignoramuses.
Point well taken,
Jean
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Author: Frank
Date: 2003-01-29 23:44
I played many gigs where some joker comes up and asks to play my sax....When I say no, they assure me that they play....my standard reply is "If you really played, you'd know better than to ask to play my horn".....now if I went away on a break and suddenly heard my horn being played....that's grounds for violence!
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Author: GBK
Date: 2003-01-29 23:57
Now boys and girs, let's watch as the two musicians share the same mouthpiece.
Can you say 'meningitis'?
I thought you could! ...GBK
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Author: Todd W.
Date: 2003-01-30 00:01
Q: What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?
A: I don't know and I don't care.
Peter, it sounds like you were "lucky" enough to run into examples of one or both. I think Miss Manners would encourage the softer (volume-wise) approach of the icy stare, the hand extended for the return of the instrument, and, if necessary, a cool "May I please have MY mouthpiece/instrument back now?". If the culprit didn't seem to get it, I would be sorely tempted to add, "You're probably OK, this disease is only mildly contagious." Maybe adding a couple of coughs, too.
Nah, you're right, yelling is better.
Todd W.
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Author: Sandra F. H.
Date: 2003-01-30 00:07
It's probably best if you cap your REMOVED mouthpieces and put them in your pocket. Otherwise, uneducated people will pick up any mouthpiece and any reed and play on it. This way you avoid confrontations, questions, explanations, hard feelings and memingitis! Sandra
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Author: Melissa
Date: 2003-01-30 00:36
I definitely agree with Sandra! That is disgusting, there has to be something horribly wrong with the people who played on your mouth piece. I mean would you just pick up someone else's reed and mouth piece and play on it especially if you didn't know them. This reminds me of how a few years ago I was playing my one friends sax and she was playing my other friends flute and the other was playing my clarinet (and then we switched all again) and we were just "jamming" when a few weeks later I was diagnosed with mono and we knew each other! just imagine what kind of things they people who played your instrument could have been carrying around... but wouldn't you think they should have thought the same thing? who knows I just would never leave my mouthpiece any where were someone could get at it.
Melissa
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Author: Ken
Date: 2003-01-30 02:07
Don't feel too bad Peter, I once had lunch at a McDonalds in Manhattan; ordered my supersize No. 3, found a table, put my tray down and made a quick trip to the can. When I returned to the table there was a stinky baglady with a face like a prune danish sitting in my seat eating my food!
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Author: Bob A
Date: 2003-01-30 02:11
Golly Ken, you just committed a "random act of kindness", or a "Mitzveh".
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-01-30 02:23
Ken, Where else but in NYC!
Melissa, You were lucky that's all you caught!
Sandra, You can bet a dollar to a doughnut that I won't be leaving any mouthpieces lying around any more!
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Author: Alex
Date: 2003-01-30 05:06
There was a scene in the TV show "Monk" a few months back, where someone plays Adrian Monk's clarinet right before he goes on live on the radio. He gets freaked and won't play. Quite a good laugh, especially for clarinetists
On another note, in a woodwind catalog I got in the mail a few months back, they actually sell disinfecting spray that you spritz onto your mouthpiece after such an incident to minimize the germs and such.
-Alex
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2003-01-30 14:28
I saw that show. Didn't he say he was playing a rosewood clarinet? It looked about as rosewood as a bowling ball.
Did you smile with recognition when he took his new mouthpiece out of that distinctive Vandoren box?
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Author: Bob A
Date: 2003-01-30 14:34
Hey Ralph G, If sports figures get large figures for displaying a "sponsor's" logo, why not poor-musicians who might get a free box of reeds or something? I guess in Vandorens case it would be 10 boxes of reeds to make sure the little guy put a good one in each box.
Bob A
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2003-01-30 15:33
Maybe in Monk's case, they could offer to put a rosewood veneer over that plastic.
Or maybe they convinced him the majestic Resonite tree was a close relative of the rosewood..
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Author: Todd W.
Date: 2003-01-30 15:56
Ralph G --
"majestic Resonite tree" -- great line!
(We'll probably see it on eBay soon.)
Todd W.
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2003-01-30 16:52
I have no problem sharing my mouthpiece with people I know.
Heck I've kissed girls without knowing much about their oral cavity bacterial content. And I think much more fluids have been exchanged....
One of my previous teacher use to play my instrument all the time. He rarely took out his horn. He would just go and play the stuff or demonstrate a excerpt right from your setup. I guess it was his way of saying, it's not the horn it's the player. Of course he would not play it if he had a cold or something.
Anyways, Peter I agree with you the behavior of those unknown individuals was unacceptable. It's scary, it makes me wonder if the shops actually clean their mouthpieces before you get to try them, yuk!
-S
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Author: Henry
Date: 2003-01-30 17:49
Yes, Sylvain, I know that kissing and some other unmentionables are very special, rather irrational cases! Have been "guilty" myself. But would you have used their toothbrushes?
Henry
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Author: Mark Sloss
Date: 2003-01-30 19:56
You guys are way to generous. I'd brain somebody for touching my gear without asking, whether or not saliva was involved. You just flat out don't do that. I never, and I mean never, turn my back on my instruments. It takes only a second for somebody to pinch it or damage it, or worse -- play a Kenny G lick on it. I've had drunk women spill mixed drinks right down the bell of my tenor while I was holding it (OK, maybe she was one of Marcellus' students expressing her feelings about saxophones). I can't even imagine the horrors if I left them unattended.
Playing tonsil hockey with your belle or beau is more than a little different from somebody blowing your horn (yes, I can see I'm two-for-two on the double entendre -- move on). You have at least, in theory, established some level of relationship and trust, and accepted the risks that go with it. Swapping spit by sharing reeds and mouthpieces went out with AIDS 15 years ago. People finally woke up to the risks. Maybe HIV isn't transmitted that way, but strep, hep, staf, herpes, etc. ad nauseum can be. I don't do it with my students, and I admonish them not to do it with each other.
Peter, you are truly a saint. Next time, smite them with the wrath of the Allmighty.
Hey you, yeah you! Get a way from my kazoo. Sorry guys, I gotta go...
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-01-31 04:14
I keep a bottle of Sterisol spray in my bag. I've seen sales people put a used MP aside, like they are going to clean it later and I've often wondered if someone else might not have come along and just put it away like that, thinking that the MP was shown, not played in trial, or without caring, one way or the other. So I spritz them before and after I use them so neither I, nor the next poor sap winds up trading spit by proxy.
After these two idiots used my MP without permission, both times, I SCRUBBED the MP with a good, antiseptic soap, soaked it in peroxide and literally dipped it in Sterisol, cork and all.
As I said, I'm no fair-haired boy, but...
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2003-01-31 14:50
Man oh man, what some people will do. I find other people's spit totally disgusting! Not to mention potentially dangerous with flu and cold season, etc.
On the other hand, before playing a used mouthpiece I always wash it extensively and make certain it is sanitary before putting it into my mouth.
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Author: David
Date: 2003-02-01 23:20
That is Simply Not Done. When break time comes around, everyone I've ever played with just dumps their instruments on the seat / floor / anywhere in the absolute copper-bottomed certainty that nobody would even consider doing such a thing.
(The NRA Concert Band is available for weddings, bar-mitzvahs etc...)
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