Author: Max S-D
Date: 2021-01-18 01:00
I have both a Zinner CF and a Zinner CWF in my drawer. I got both on trial to replace the Zinner-blank Hawkins I'd played when I got my Bachelor's degree and at the end of the trial period, knew that I wanted one of them but couldn't decide which. So I kept both.
For me, both have the lower-resistance feeling that I associate with Clark's mouthpieces. Both feel "efficient" to me, in terms of usable volume produced for the amount of perceived "work" compared to something like a Vandoren, for example. Both have the clarity and absolute lack of stuffiness that I associate with Clark's work as well.
The differences that it came down to for me were in tone and articulation. The CF won out on tone by a fair bit for me, since the one I have feels more colorful and textured where the CWF was darker and rounder. Some friends who have played my CF find it too bright for their tastes, but when I play it, they have no problem with my tone. Personal preference, of course. My CF has noticeably more material in the baffle area behind the tip than the CWF. This may vary slightly from mouthpiece to mouthpiece, since they are handmade. Whatever you want to call it, the CF has more going on in the high mids and highs, which may or may not be what you want.
The CWF allows me to articulate my staccato the most cleanly of any mouthpiece I've ever used. I won't speculate too much about why, since I don't know, but something about it just works remarkably well for me, someone who has always had to concentrate a bit to get staccato to be light and accurate. Not that the CF holds me back, but the CWF made me feel like my articulation was better than it is, which I have never experienced with any other mouthpiece.
Ultimately, the more colorful tone and still-very-good articulation of the CF won out for me. That colorful sound really floated my boat, particularly in the lower clarion, which I sometimes find a bit hard to do much with, since I don't find those notes to be terribly flexible, tone-wise. Higher and lower on the instrument, I can vary the color a lot more, so if the tone is veering a bit bright, it's no trouble to scale that back a bit with voicing, but if the lower clarion, especially B, C# and C, are dull, I have a hard time doing much there.
I played the CF as my do-everything mouthpiece for a few years, playing classical, jazz and experimental music. I still quite enjoy it. A couple of years ago I went through a period of embouchure and voicing changes that resulted in a mouthpiece hunt that ended on a closed-facing Behn Sono because I prefer the somewhat higher resistance that it offers while still maintaining a similar feeling of highly subjective "efficiency." That mouthpiece occupies a similar position to the CF on the brighter/more colorful side of the still-classically-acceptable tonal spectrum. With appropriate reeds matched, I sound about the same on either after about ten minutes, but the Behn makes it a bit more physically comfortable for me to accomplish what I want.
In conclusion, it's likely that none of this will have any bearing on your experience and you'll have to try them yourself.
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
