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Re: BG Tradition...breaking?

Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-02-14 15:56

Hey Bob,

I was asking a few very specific questions about a specific ligature, but I felt I needed to push back on a few things that you brought up that have been bothersome tropes for me over the years.

With regard to the strength and warpage of mouthpiece tables I would LOVE to hear more input from the community, however, material such as VULCANIZED rubber has a property known as COMPRESSIVE strength. You can line up a series of three long stemmed wine glasses on a two-by-four, then place another across the top of them, then stand on it and they will hold you up just fine. Similarly (I feel) one cannot contort a mouthpiece table with anything close to the tiny amount of compression the most Medieval ligature can produce. In addition the mouthpieces with the "softest" hard rubber are the old Chedevilles and the Behn copies. The softness manifests itself in regard to abrasive or repetitive impact (such as the vibration of a reed) which is why Behn offers a lifetime facing adjustment on his mouthpieces.

Again, I'd love input from others on this.

The second issue I have is with the efficaciousness of using an IPhone to judge the sound of a clarinet. I admit that I am raw from a session last night researching a piece of music for an upcoming gig that is popular with high school ensembles. Many of the YOUTUBE offerings were recorded on "said" devices (or equivalents). GRANTED you can asses aspects of musicality (yes, musicality.......see any vintage recording of a great player), balance within an ensemble, and accuracy of togetherness and tempo. BUT any meaningful assessment of something like timbre or projection is a lost cause even for the best recording process (and there are lot of different "bests" by the way).

Lastly, (and I carelessly say this without having read "Stanley Drucker, Clarinet Master") Stanley Drucker was not immune to trying out and using various mouthpieces. Frank Wells was famous for relating a time when Stanley brought in his cohorts with New York Phil while touring through Chicago. They all tried out and bought mouthpieces that day (some time in the '60s?). Of course there IS the possibility that Frank lied about that. There are mouthpiece makers who are inclined to lie to sell their product. Of course Frank is not with us any more and I have not read Mitch Estrin's book yet.

"I am become death, destroyer of ligatures."

..................Paul Aviles

Post Edited (2019-02-14 16:15)

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