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Re: Mouthpiece & Student Questions

Author: Al_Martinez23
Date: 2018-06-25 18:58

I’ve played Bass Clarinet for 9 years now and I’d say that personally for me I’d go the more expensive route. I’ve played the Vandoren B50 mouthpiece and it’s good, you can use it for a vast majority of genres as well. But I’ve also played on a Clark Fobes San Francisco “RR” facing mouthpiece and it responded so much better. I was able to get more control and a much rounder darker sound than the B50. The one thing that was a little bit harder was getting more volume from it. I was still able to get a great dynamic Range but it was missing at least for me a bit of projection, just a little though. As of right now though i’m currently playing on a Richard Hawkin Bass Clarinet Mouthpiece that was refaced by Nathan Beaty. It has that projection that I want while not sacrificing tone, it has a rich dark sound in the low register and a very nice singing quality in the clarion and altissimo register. I like it a lot. As a reference point for the mouthpieces I’ve mentioned it’s as followed:

Vandoren B50-$150

Clark Fobes San Francisco: $275

Richard Hawkins- $350(don’t quote me on this though)

and if you want to get your mouthpiece refaced by Nathan Beaty it would cost around 75 dollars.

Mouthpieces are a really personal thing so it’s important you try as many as you can! And if you’re feeling risky you can always go on the famous auction site. There are really good deals there at times but you have to be careful if you decide to.

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