Author: markcr
Date: 2017-12-05 21:19
Hi Markos,
Great to hear you and Clark are good friends. A couple of years ago when I first got a clarinet, I e-mailed Clark and asked him all sorts of questions which he helped me out with. I started out with his Debut mouthpiece and I still use it from time to time.
Curious as to which Yamaha you have (YCL20, 23, 250)? I bought an eBay ycl20 when I first started out but it arrived in bad shape. To have it overhauled would have cost me more than I felt it was worth. I loaned it to a buddy and his daughter's music teacher was able to get it playable so she used it for a couple of semesters. I should call him and see if she's still using it. If not, I may be able to get it back. They may have donated it to the school, though. The plastic Vito I have sounds really nice. My latest find was a $100 Noblet Artist which I really like. It's in dire need of adjustment but I can play it as is until I find someone to take it to.
I really enjoyed reading your blog post on reed care and maintenance. I picked up some really good pointers from that post. One, I think I'm playing too stiff a reed for my ability/level. I've fallen down that rabbit hole thinking that the "pros" use 3.5 - 4.0 reeds. So, I've been pushing myself to use stiffer reeds all the time. The fact that you practice with 2.5 and gig with 3.0 V12's is really refreshing to read. I'm going to back off the stiffness for a while so that I get some feeling back in my lips. LOL! The second point you brought up is regarding synthetic reeds. I've been using Legeres because I enjoy tinkering with cane reeds about as much as I enjoy putting new strings on my guitar. However, I never realized that my somewhat flat throat tones might be related to the synthetic reed and not my clarinet, mouthpiece or barrel. I might just go back to cane - if anything, to make sure I'm not developing bad habits by compensating for the synthetic reeds.
I'll check out your soundcloud page this evening! Oh, and very cool you had the chance to study with Eddie Daniels!!
Cheers!
-Mark
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