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Mouthpieces

Author: Fisssssh
Date: 2016-10-24 08:36

I have an audition coming up soon, for a band with very competitive entry, and I decided to upgrade my mouthpiece in order to improve my tone and help me to play with less effort, as my old Vandoren B45 was quite resistant.

At this point I have narrowed it down to two mouthpieces that I really like. One is a Morgan Classical mouthpiece. This mouthpiece plays extremely well- the intonation is great, the altissimo notes speak well, it has a wide dynamic range, and is very comfortable to play on. The only downside is that it has a somewhat shallow tone in the clarion and below, and makes kind of a buzzing noise in the lowest notes.

The other one is a Vandoren M30. It belongs to my teacher, but she is allowing me to borrow it to compare to the other one. This one, overall, does not play with as much ease as the Morgan. It is not very resistant, but the reed becomes restricted easily and the altissimo notes are difficult to play. But the thing I love about this mouthpiece is that it plays very smoothly and has wonderful tone. It has that warm, pure sound that is characteristic to the clarinet that I have always been working toward. I believe that this mouthpiece was used by my teacher for about a year.

I am not really sure which one is the better option, but I know that I would choose the Morgan Classical if there was some way to improve the tone. So my questions are:

-Will it help to play with a harder reed, or will that just cause it to become more resistant and fuzzy?
-Does the tone get better over time from playing on the mouthpiece more? Does it develop a certain character after being played on more, sort of like a reed?
-Is there anything else that can be done to create a fuller, warmer sound?

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