 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Jaymz
Date: 2003-01-31 03:43
sup all,
heres the thing my teachers being kind of a butthole about the whole section of clarinets getting new mouthpieces i decided to come here and ask wethere a nice selmer or a vandoren is best...i'm sorta leaning toward the B45 or the M13 by vandoren....but anything else sounds to expensive...so any advice ont eh B45 or the M13 would be helpfull cause i need it soon i mean way soon...like ASAP (i hate my teacher) oh well thanks a bunch and i would like it if you would give there pros and cons about each one also...thanks (again) laters
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Author: nzdonald
Date: 2003-01-31 03:57
oh boy that "i hate my teacher" thing will stir up a few people.
ok- the M13 and the B45 are about as far apart as mouthpieces can be.... have you actually played either of them? if you have to buy anything without actually trying it, i'd say get the Vandoren 5RVlyre Mseries.... but to be honest, you really need to try stuff out if possible.
"doninarush"
(i hate my pupils!)(not)
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Author: ron b
Date: 2003-01-31 04:58
C'mon, Jaymz, be honest. Does your teacher own a mouthpiece company or sumthin' ???
I can't imagine a teacher/director suddenly demanding that a whole section get new mouthpieces... ASAP no less. Please clarify that. Inform me. Be kind and teach me something today. There may be a perfectly good reason for it - I just don't know what it could be. I'm sure the teacher told you why you should spend your money in a hurry that way.
Something's wrong with this picture :|
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Author: GBK
Date: 2003-01-31 05:23
Too little information....
What mouthpiece/reed combo are you using now?
Why did you narrow the choice down to the B45 or the M13 (do you realize they are totally different facings/openings/etc)...? Is that your preference or your director's?
Don't choose a mouthpiece by just picking one out of a catalog! Would you buy a pair of shoes that way?
If you are serious about selecting a mouthpiece, head to the nearest large music outlet, bring a handful of reeds, a tuner and plan to spend a few hours.
Every clarinet player has a different bite/embouchure/oral cavity/ etc...If your director is telling the entire clarinet section what mouthpiece to buy, it may be time for parents to get involved...GBK
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Author: Bryan
Date: 2003-01-31 13:47
I'd suggest also checking out Walter Grabner's mouthpieces. They're well-made custom pieces sold direct at a very reasonable price, especially his 'conservatory' model for students, which is not much more than a Vandoren or Selmer. It's only available in one facing, so it either works for you or it doesn't, but if it does it's a great value. You don't necessarily have to pay a fortune to get a good mouthpiece.
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Author: William
Date: 2003-01-31 15:17
Gregory Smith (Chicago Symphony Orcestral second clarinet extrodinaire--and Sneezy sponser) also makes very good mouthpieces. They are a bit "pricey", but well worth every penney in response, intonation and performance.
However, the examples that you mentioned are all good products, but you have to try as many as possible to find the "one" that is right for you. Response, intonation and flexability of sound (from loud to soft) are important considerations. With Greg's products--especially his Kaspar Cicero models, this is less of a problem because they are all hand finished from Zinner blanks and are good. However, you still should try a few examples to find the best, and he is very "accessable" and careful to help you find the mouthpiece that is best for you. At least, that was my experiance.
FWIW, I play an original Chicago Kaspar mpc, but I always carry a Greg Smith "Cicero Kaspar" in my case in the event that the "unthinkable" should happen and my main mouthpieces career should be ended by injury . Greg's mouthpiece (like in the NFL) is always ready to step in for the "big play" (if needed).
(And, try to develop a more positve attitude with regards to your teacher who may be as frustrated as you are--two people pulling the same load is better than just one :>)
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Author: Jaymz
Date: 2003-01-31 20:24
well ok heres the thing about my teacher...one! he's a trumpet player!!! 2. he played trumpet in a bugel core....three he is the father of our old colorguard instructor....four he's a jerk...and five he dont know anything about clarinets! i've tried the M13 and the B45 so much that it was me but they sounded the same to me i tried different ways to see if it was good intonation and great dynamic range...i'm not a complete moron and i know it wasnt meant to be offensive...and our parents hate the guy as well...so basicly my band kicks butt but the director is a jerk...putting it nicely....so yah theres your things....which one should i go for if i want to play thinker reeds...like 4-5+? i think the M13 sounded good but i hear there making a M15 or have made it...any info on that? ok thanks
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Author: Henry
Date: 2003-01-31 21:16
Jaymz...I don't know how to put this kindly but you seem to have a serious attitude problem. Is there ANYONE at your school you like and admire? And by the way, you should pay more attention to your English teacher! (Unless he/she is a jerk too.)
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2003-01-31 21:40
If you want to play hard reeds then the M13 is better suited than the B45.
If your preference goes towards the M13, I suggest you try also the M13 Lyre and the M15 (serie 13).
I play an M15 and like it very much, but can be difficult to play, because of a very long facing.
The M13 Lyre is a nice mouthpiece.
Clark forbes has a "Debut Mouthpiece" for $34 that works well for a number of people. Check him out at:
http://www.clarkwfobes.com/Homepage.html
-S
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-02-01 00:15
Jaymz,
A harder reed is not necessarily a good thing. You can't just get up one morning and decide that you need to play on a #4 or #5 reed and make it so, just like that.
I just held a "private" clinic with my son, Daniel, who was having some serious 'airiness' problems, which his school's music teacher, with (I believe) a master's degree in clarinet performance, could not fix.
I tried out his clarinet with my all my current mouthpieces and had no problem at all. I tried it with his mouthpieces and his reeds (#3.5) and had a problem. I tried it with his mouthpieces and a 1/2 step softer reed (#3) and the thing played fine. I gave it to him to try with the softer reed and his problem disappeared.
You can't just pick a mouthpiece and reed combination arbitrarily, you have to go out and work for it.
There are some very heavy hitters out there who only play on a #1.5 or a #2 reed. Many more who play on #2.5 to #3.5 reeds. What makes you more knowledgeable than these heavy hitters that you think you can arbitrarily choose a #4 to #5 reed and decide this is what you should be playing on?
Daniel's last music teacher (BA in Clarinet Performance and MA in Conducting) did something similar last year. He bought E-11s and B-45 mouthpieces for the entire clarinet section of the wind ensemble. (Except for Daniel, who was already playing on a good instrument of different manufacture and a good mouthpiece and refused to give them up. In fact, I believe it was Daniel's sound that inspired his teacher to put out the bread for the E-11s, so Daniel got to keep his horn.)
Some played the B-45s fine and dandy, some others went back to their old mouthpieces and the teacher never knew the difference (or probably cared,) because then they were all playing fairly well and more to his liking; some went out and purchased their own new mouthpieces for the new clarinets.
Daniel’s last teacher was also thoroughly hated by his students and many of the parents, but *all* the bands and orchestras he was involved with also 'kicked butt,' as you say, and isn't that what it is ultimately all about?
The man is one hell of a fine music teacher, proof of which is the fact that he was offered, and accepted, a really outstanding job teaching music in Europe this year. Definitely our loss.
(The new teacher is fresh out of college and real wimpy. Everyone hates her even worse, because the bands and orchestras sound like crap! As Larry Lieberson might say, and rightfully so, "Go figure!")
Nobody here can give you the easy way out. If you want to play the clarinet, you have to go through all these changes of looking for the right equipment for you, specifically. You have to work for it, and you can't just ask what mouthpiece would be good for a hard reed. Like what came first, the mouthpiece or the reed?
Perhaps you should ask someone who plays the clarinet to help you pick out a mouthpiece...
But first, please get your attitude fixed. Attitude plays a great part in becoming successful, especially when you have to depend on other people to make that success a reality, like your music teacher.
One more thing: Trumpet players may not make the best clarinet teachers, but that he is a trumpet player doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't know what a clarinet should sound like!
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Author: Brad
Date: 2003-02-01 08:32
<<Daniel’s last teacher was also thoroughly hated by his students and many of the parents, but *all* the bands and orchestras he was involved with also 'kicked butt,' as you say, and isn't that what it is ultimately all about?>>
Is this really true? The relationship between a conductor and his band/orchestra can't really be defined to those who aren't musicians. While, I agree that we always want to sound good, a bad teacher probably won't help his/her students. A student may come out sounding great but wouldn't know why or how to keep it up. Why would students want to keep playing under someone like this? I'm not sure, Peter, but perhaps you didn't meant to use the word "hated" because I can definitely see a band under somebody strict, someone that was no one's favorite, yet could still make a definite impact on the students. I still feel that education of the music should come before trying to become a kickbutt band. This is the problem with band director's associations throughout many of the states--they are geared too much toward competition and care less about the education and motivation of students...well I'm going off into a separate topic, but it's something I feel strongly about.
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-02-01 23:22
Gee, Brad,
I should probably have e-mailed this to you instead.
Who said anyone was a "bad teacher?" Besides you, that is.
I said, "The man is one hell of a FINE MUSIC TEACHER, proof of which is the fact that he was offered, and accepted, a really outstanding job teaching music in Europe this year. Definitely our loss." But I did miss a coma, could that have been what confused you? I’ll see if I have a picture depicting a “good” and a “bad” music teacher so I can send them to you and you can skip the words.
I didn’t say, "The man could make any band sound good, regardless of their music education."
See the difference? It gets old after a while to have people misunderstand things that were pretty explicitly said. I think that's part of what prompts my "essays." Trying to give the misunderstanding a more basic set of words to read, alas, with no avail.
Frankly, even though I don't know Jaymz, I know music students. Specifically, high school level (and lower) music students in large classroom environments, and Jaymz' comments and tone are very typical of a particular type of student who can hold back the rest of the class if permitted to do so.
Students who have "bad" teachers are, more often, not so much angry, but sad, hurt and disappointed, and sometimes bewildered at the things their teachers may ask of them. Their words generally reflect these other emotions, sometimes with a degree of anger, but not just dire anger, as with Jaymz. Jaymz’ thing is more typical of a...student who wants his way and the teacher won’t budge.
Tell me what the following has to do with whether the man is a good MUSIC teacher, or not:
As per Jaymz:
"well ok heres the thing about my teacher..."
"one! he's a trumpet player!!!" (Hmmm, this makes him a musician.)
"2. he played trumpet in a bugel core...." (This makes him a musician that has experience in playing with a large group, regardless of what anyone may think about the type of group otherwise, and surely sometime he must have also played with other types of bands and orchestras, as well.)
"three he is the father of our old colorguard instructor...." (So what? I'm the father of one engineer, one professional student who has been in college for more than 12 years without completing a degree, a housewife, a business school drop-out, a college professor/student and a high school music student, how does that affect ME professionally?)
"four he's a jerk..." (This could very well be, I've known lots of, both, really good and really bad musicians who were total jerks!)
"and five he dont know anything about clarinets!" (Well, perhaps, but does he know about music and can he teach it as a subject?)
This is anger speaking, not disappointment in having found out the man is not a good music teacher. And maybe he is not a good teacher, but we don’t know or will ever know by trying to follow Jaymz’ angered and inarticulate account.
Unfortunately, Jaymz’ communications skills also put him, in my book, as a generally bad student to have in any class, anyway. I could be wrong, but if this is how he chooses to communicate in public, then that’s also how people who don’t know him are going to judge him: By reading past 11 serious grammatical errors in a single 39-word paragraph. Some kids think this is “Cool.” Most educated people, kids or adults, do not.
I know, I know...I'm an outhouse psychologist, I’m opinionated and hard-corps about how I view things, but everyone develops opinions through having lived experiences, especially recurring experiences, and there are no statistics more accurate, in a personal sense, than the knowledge and impressions attained through personal experience.
Yes, students and parents alike HATED the teacher I’m talking about, not merely disliked him. Not absolutely everyone, perhaps, but probably the greater majority.
The truth of the matter was that, not only several of the better high schools throughout the state fought over which should have this man teaching on their staffs, but several universities were after him, as well. In fact, in 2001, someone at Leblanc, asked me if this teacher might be available to do clinics. Is this the mark of a bad teacher? I think not.
Someone else on this BB, who played in an orchestra where this music teacher was also a member, once wrote to me that this music teacher's attendance at rehearsals was spotty, at best, but that it was (I don’t remember the exact words, something to the effect of...) an excellent experience when he conducted the orchestra.
His spotty appearance at these rehearsals was due to the fact that his diverse school bands always had rehearsal schedules that could go on until late hours after school, so he rarely had time for other activities, lest he neglect his students!
When I say that the bands and orchestras this man directed were "kick butt," I'm mocking Jaymz' terminology. But when I tell you that the bands and orchestras this music teacher directed were absolutely outstanding, I'm telling you that he was not only a FANTASTIC MUSIC TEACHER AND CONDUCTOR, but a strict disciplinarian, as well, therefore, disliked to the utmost by some.
Most especially by those students who were not willing to give 100% to music, at least during music class, and the parents who coddled the little slackers... I'd better stop here, because I can't stand this type of student or parent either, and I'm going to say something nasty.
Melissa said about a quote in a recent post:
"It might get some of my other classmates practicing more than once a month when all they talk about is how they wish to perform in a major symphony orchestra."
In my experience, it's mostly this type of slacker student, supported by their coddling parents (poor baby, the music teacher expects you to earn your grade!) who become the unfortunate majority and who create most of the problems in the music-learning environment.
They don't want to work for it, yet they want to have or accomplish the success. In the meantime, they undergo these infantile dreams of becoming one of music's all-time greats and the teacher is the one keeping them from accomplishing themselves as overnight virtuosos.
(My wife’s niece-in-law, with no real marketable skills or upper-level education, recently quit an excellent and surprisingly well-paid receptionist’s job, because they asked her to put files in alphabetical order while she sat there answering the telephone reading “Cosmopolitan” and doing her nails. She felt she was being exploited, as a receptionist, to the tune of $12.00 per hour! Ours is a tough family where you earn your place by being a team player and contributor. Consequently nobody gets along with her.)
The music teacher I'm talking about, after trying his utmost to motivate a student, would readily disabuse the student of these dreams of grandeur vs. what they were putting into their music education. If they did not come across after that, they were relegated to a lesser band that best suited their level of playing, handed a different instrument or became the "water boy" and failed the class.
This, of course, caused much loss of face to many of the students this happened to, consequently, causing much of the hatred involved, both by the students and their parents, who promptly spread it to the four winds, and enlisted other parents, whose children weren't even involved, to their cause.
Of course, parents who supported their children's music education and whose children were doing well through hard work on their own behalf did not discuss their particular success very much, if at all.
Tell me of one professional band or orchestra that doesn't drop in status or get rid of slackers who don't want to work for their position in the group. Show me one football team that keeps their best players on the bench while the slackers participate in the game. (Of course, we all know there are instances of political advantage or nepotism, but there's usually nothing to be done about those and they are, often, the lesser examples.)
These are the students who get a three-day suspension from music class and go home crying to their parents that the teacher is a total jerk. When the parents go over the teacher's head and complain directly to the principal, you come to find out that the teacher warned the student ten times not to disrupt the class and left five messages for the parent(s) to call the teacher back, and the parent(s) never did. Go figure! (Larry, this is growing on me!)
I appreciate more the ones who tell you they couldn't care less about music and that they are only there because all the other electives filled up before they could put their names down for something else. These don't even hate the teacher; they are just marking time until they can get out of it. The more intelligent ones might even become fairly decent first or second year musicians while in the process.
At least these other guys and gals are, usually, not hypocritical about it.
This teacher did not take any guff, either from parents or students, that detracted from his student's (the ones who, ultimately, wanted to learn) MUSIC EDUCATION and, by hook or by crook, THE STUDENTS LEARNED MUSIC AND HOW TO INTERPRET IT ON THEIR RESPECTIVE INSTRUMENTS, NOW AND LATER; WHETHER SOLO OR TUTTI WITH OR WITHOUT A LARGE ENSEMBLE TO BACK THEM. Period!
Now the little hypocritical s---s and their parents have joined the ones who have been good musicians all along in hating the new music teacher, because they have "come to realize how much poorer a music education they are getting now that Mr. So-and-so left and their music really sounds like crap, because it's new and different music, and…!" It's almost all they talk about, how much better a teacher Mr. So-and-so was, etc. Well, too little, too late for supporters and detractors alike.
("In the Army," they say, "there are only two good units, the one you left and the one you want to go to." Never the one you are in.)
However, the new music teacher is fresh out of college and, unfortunately, she is in her OJT period, which can last a couple of years during which, she really can cause an awful lot of damage to students, if she’s not smart. But this is not her fault. Everyone has to start someplace.
Now, Brad,
You don't make sense to me. You tell me: How a structured band or orchestra considered a "kick butt" band by people who know music can possibly be a band composed of members whose music education has been neglected? Please don't be ridiculous. (I know this is going to cost me.)
In my book, there is no such thing as a "kick butt" band, the majority of whose members have not had some solid music education, somewhere along the line. EXCEPT FOR THE FEW VIRTUOSOS that crop up periodically throughout the millennia, even the lesser musicians of the turn of the century to middle 1900s jazz era had some sound music education behind them!
And I hereby disassociate my self from this topic.
Peter
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Author: Brad
Date: 2003-02-08 23:16
Hello,
I just read your message today, and I think we both misunderstood each other. I didn't call that teacher bad in my post--especially since I didn't overlook the "The man is one hell of a FINE MUSIC TEACHER" bit. What I meant was to actually generalize about bad music teachers. What I didn't understand was your use of the word "hated". I thought that by "hated" you meant that the students and parents didn't conciouslly recognize the benefits of that teacher. That's why I couldn't see them hating him.
I think we are actually in agreement because my youth symphony conductor is a similar type of teacher. That's why I said: "I can definitely see a band under somebody strict, someone that was no one's favorite, yet could still make a definite impact on the students"...I'm not really sure, but please inform me, isn't that what you meant also? I like these old school type of authority figures..my old swim coach and clarinet teacher are the same way. My school band director is very conceding and doesn't take control, which is why no one in our band can respect him and as a result, we have an average band.
Sorry if I offended you by unintentionally degrading your son's former band director. Of course, discipline is important for any group to be functional. When you said "hating", I thought it was implied that the students wouldn't be able to look back years later and say that this teacher was really good. I'm sorry, I still have trouble with English.
Brad
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