 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-10-18 00:32
I've been playing on a slightly altered Mitchell-Lurie M3 mouthpiece with Mitchell-Luring Premium 4-1/2 reeds for the last year or so.
I've now got a few mouthpieces on trial. One is a stock Mitchell-Lurie M3. It is a great evolution from my current 'piece. Its more flexible (ppp to fff) than my old one and plays in-tune.
BUT, when I start a tone on it, it chirps. It squeaks for a moment before settling down. Changing reed hardness doesn't help.
I've asked around about the cause (maybe that's why mine has had some work on the rails), and a fellow in Montreal is recorking an old M3 to run some tests.
Two possible causes have been offered:
The tip rail is too thin;
The left and right rails don't have the same curves;
The reed doesn't match the mpc.
Do you folks have any other thoughts that would help me get along with this otherwise sterling piece?
Thanks
Bob Phillips
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2005-10-18 00:46
Generally, the cause is one (or both) of the following:
-- Rails have different curvatures at or near the tip; and/or
-- The baffle is asymmetric/uneven near the tip.
The root cause (so I've read) is that asymmetry near the tip promotes the generation of lateral vibrational modes (side to side across the tip of the reed) rather than the desired longitudinal modes (lengthwise). But whadda I know........
It is NOT:
Thin tip rails (per se); nor
A reed which 'doesn't match' (whatever THAT means) the mouthpiece
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Author: Merlin
Date: 2005-10-18 02:04
Montreal? I wasn't aware I'd moved. Oh well, as long as I'm here, I might as well go to Schwartz's for a smoked meat sandwich...
(I'm in Toronto, Bob, and I should have some answers this week...)
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-10-18 06:38
sometimes the facing is symetrical, but, how can i describe it?, the "flat plane" from which the facing curve curves from..... is not "flat" in relation to the insides of the mouthpiece.
blomin' heck, that was a bad explanation- imagine the facing has been well done and is symetrical etc, but the mouthpiece table was lopsided to begin with....
anyhow- this causes squeaks, but when you measure the mouthpiece it seems to be in order....
another possible cause of squeaks= the baffle may not be symetrical, and have a "bump" somewhere down there. This is arguable- i've experienced mouthpieces where this SEEMED to be the cause of squeaks, and fixing this SEEMED to solve the problem, but you really don't know do you?
donald
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-10-18 16:25
Omigod, Merlin, I thought that you were an awfully nice and articulate fellow. My apologies.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-10-18 17:27
Try moving the reed slightly higher on the mouthpiece, so that the reed tip is a tiny bit higher than the mouthpiece tip -- maybe the width of a thin pencil line.
If that cures the chirping, then the problem is probably that the reed tip is curved more than the mouthpiece tip, creating a tiny gap at one or both of the corners. If this is the problem, you can buy slightly softer reeds and move them up, or file the end of the tip, curving it to match the mouthpiece. For this, I use a Revlon Diamond Dust nailfile and squeeze all but the very end of the tip between my thimb and forefinger.
I sorted through more than a dozen Courdier trimmers before I found one that matched my mouthpiece tip exactly.
If the squeaking continues, lick the palm of your hand, press the bottom of the mouthpiece against it and suck the air out. The reed should take several seconds to pop away. If it pops immediately, there's a leak, due to unevenness in the reed or the mouthpiece. (Do this only once, as it's very hard on the reed.)
It's easy to put an almost invisible ding on the corner of the mouthpiece by bumping it against a wall or even a stand. Hold the mouthpiece with the lay upward and the tip pointing toward you, with a bright light coming over your shoulder. Rotate the mouthpiece up and down and look at the corners of the tip for a flat area going diagonally down from the corner. One corner will be shinier than the other. If that's the problem, there's unfortunately no way to avoid a leak at the tip.
There are people who can fill chips in the rails, but that's filling a gap with supporting material all the way around. I doubt that any material would be strong and adhesive enough to build the tip area out to its original dimensions. You may need a new mouthpiece.
I always buy reeds a full strength heavier than I play and flatten the bottoms on sandpaper over plate glass, to create a smooth surface and assure a tight seal.
Ken Shaw
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2005-10-18 19:24
Did you try other brands of reeds than Luries? I've never used them myself, but when new students bring them in they usually find their way to my wastebasket post haste! (The reeds, that is--not the students). Lots of the school band directors around here recommend them, but I can't figure out why--they seem to have a life span of about 3 days.
Before you do anything radical to the mouthpiece why dont you try Grand Concert (same corporate), Gonzales, Vandoren, Mozart.........
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Author: Grabnerwg
Date: 2005-10-18 21:10
Disredarding warped reeds, the most common cause of chirping is a bad, uneven facing or a table which is not flat.
Many stock mouthpiece come to the end user with a bump or hump in the table, right under the window. The reed CANNOT lie flat on this and the vibrations become unstable. Think of a board on a teeter-totter.....
A mouthpiece like this might have quite a nice tone, but you can never trust it. It will let you down - often in the worst possible circumstances.
A skilled mouthpiece craftsman can remove a small hump in the table. If it is quite pronounced, however, after the hump is removed, the facing might have to be re-done. This can really ruin the mouthpiece.
SO - warning - if the mouthpiece chirps on trial....send it BACK.
I buy certain stock mouthpiece for my business. Some models I send back up to 50% of the mouthpieces I order. I bet I am a pain to the vendors!
Walter Grabner
www.clarinetxpress.com
Mouthpiece technician
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2005-10-18 21:49
Tks, Walter for adding the mp table to the list of possible problems. I inherited an M L M4 mp with a cl, its lay was slightly roughened, so I SiC- paper flattened the table to my satisfaction, then, lightly, a few [cleaning] strokes on the lay-curve, and now have one of my very best Bb mps !!! Its tenon bore is very close to 15.0 mm and it fits nicely into a plastic "Sounds of Woodwinds HRR" barrel, whose lower bore is the same as my Selmer CT's U J bore. So I feel I now have a VG Jazz-Contemporary music horn-setup. Have not noticed any chirps ! Is my M4 unusual ?, the brochures seem to only list to the M3's. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-10-19 02:46
Don,
WOW, I need to run down a (straight) M4; sounds wonderful.
Walter,
Thanks, I hate to give it up since it seems to do everything else so well. Maybe I'll try another sample.
Thanks
Bob Phillips
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Author: contragirl
Date: 2005-10-19 07:28
Did you make sure there weren't any small birds, like sparrows, that had built nests inside of the baffle? That would be a good cause of chirping.
--Contragirl the great
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-10-19 09:34
contragirl- don't be silly, they are talking about Chriping, birds don't Crip!
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-10-19 14:33
Blush: 2x in a single thread.
If I had any little critters in the screech stick, I'd let 'em out.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-12-16 01:11
Reincarnating this thread with new information.
While trying mpcs with my teacher, I encountered "chriping," again.
He tells me that chirping is the result of taking too much mpc.
Sure enough, by pulling the mpc out of my face, I was able to get it to quit chirping.
This might be a test to see if you're taking enough mpc. Take more until it chirps than back it out a little!
Bob Phillips
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2005-12-16 13:58
I'm glad this thread was reincarnated, as I get occasional chirps on the contrabass I've recently taken up--more frequently on some notes than others. This thread will give me some things to look for. It still may be just operator error. Unfortunately, I don't have experience using a different mouthpiece, so I can't blame it outright on the mouthpiece.
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2005-12-16 14:17
I want to ditto Walter Grabner's suggestion to send the mouthpiece back. If it's too late for that list it for sale. Get one from Walter. A chirping mouthpiece won't "settle down" no matter what you do. You need one you can count on for good articulation in those rapid passages.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2005-12-16 14:30
I don't believe a properly-faced mouthpiece should chirp, no matter WHERE you park your chops.
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Author: Shorthand
Date: 2005-12-16 16:09
Chirping is an uneven side-to-side thing in reeds or mouthpiece. If its the mouthpiece, it will have to be refaced to be good.
Either eBay it or get it refaced.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-12-16 19:24
To clarify further, my teacher was generous enough to allow me to play several of his expensive mouthpieces. I was able to get all of them to chirp by taking "too much" mouthpiece into my mouth.
By taking the "correct" amount of mpc, they all settled down.
I came away convinced --and I doubt that any of these had unsymmetric rails --because Teacher Chip would have noticed while balancing reeds for them.
Bob Phillips
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2005-12-16 23:19
Quote:
I want to ditto Walter Grabner's suggestion to send the mouthpiece back. If it's too late for that list it for sale. Get one from Walter. A chirping mouthpiece won't "settle down" no matter what you do. You need one you can count on for good articulation in those rapid passages. I have never gotten back enough money on the resale of a mouthpiece to justify reselling it (maybe I'm just a bad marketer), so I'd like to put forward that another option instead of reselling the mouthpiece (if you can't return it) is to have it refaced. I don't reface mouthpieces myself, but from what I've read, it shouldn't be that hard to even the rails, flatten the table (or some refacers make it slightly concave), and basically even out the facing. ESPECIALLY if you don't ask them to do any work with the chamber/bore.
I've had a number of mouthpieces refaced (and have a crystal pomarico getting refaced as we speak) and in every case, the mouthpiece came back playing better than when I sent it out. I won't be able to comment on the crystal mouthpiece for quite a while though due to the time I expect it back and not being able to receive it for quite some time after that. But I will comment on it when I get the chance to in the future.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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