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Ed Cabarga

Author: Bill
Date: 2016-05-31 18:26

Have just read of Ed Cabarga's death in March 2015. In 2005, or thereabouts, when I was 45, he accepted me as a student. He struggled to know what to do with me, as I had never taken clarinet lessons (100% self-taught) and was, obviously, not preparing for a career in music.

The lessons lasted about 4 months and were not, in the strictest sense, successful. Yet I have good memories of driving over to Woodley Park or, on one occasion, biking over (through the zoo!). On that day I was late, and I rang the buzzer and heard him say "Oh ... so you *are* coming today." The family's pug dog, which they called "Bunny," often sat with us during lessons.

He had some sympathy for my "vintage mania" and that I had come to clarinet playing through the path of loving the instruments and mouthpieces themselves. Often of a phrase he would tell me "The math is wrong." Once I replied "Music is not math." Today I am quite the counter, and I have him to thank for that. He liked my tone.

He sold me, in two payment installments, the only Kaspar (Cicero) I am likely to ever have, from a lot of them he had acquired and refaced himself. He said they had been mauled and the tables rounded off at the edges, so that the mouthpieces were completely cylindrical. Yet somehow he was able to restore them, and my Cicero plays beautifully and takes a very firm reed. He also gave me a reverse Bonade ligature to which he had applied some sort of plastic (or teflon?) to the metal behind the screws so that it holds its shape and slides effortlessly over any mouthpiece. These items always make me think of that brief period when I took lessons. I think he was thankful to see me go! But he did admire my so-called bravery, at such a comparatively late age, for attempting the study.

I'm very sad to know he has died. Thanks (whoever reads this) for letting me remember him.

Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)

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