Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-09-14 00:15
The mouthpiece techs and brands I mentioned were (are) capable, honest workers trying to either copy a particular Ched mouthpiece or creatively produce their own interpretation of the Cheds they have examined and played. But the results vary for the following reasons:
In the heyday of the 1920s and 1930s, Charles and Henri Chedeville were not consistent either in the design or execution of mouthpieces. Even the enthusiastic Ched players might have a drawer full of Cheds that were mediocre or just didn't work for them. The lights went on, though, when they got a good one.
Let's examine this more closely: If 6 great Ched advocates, say Harold Wright, Robert Genovese, Donald Montanaro, Ignatius Gennusa, Anthony Gigioltti, and Ralph McLane put their favorite Cheds on the table for inspection, you would have not 6 copies of a single Ur-Ched model but rather 6 different mouthpieces, handcrafted and in many respects dissimilar. One might have a narrow H-shaped tone chamber, the other a medium A-frame chamber and another a squat, squarish chamber, and another a chamber with slightly curved side walls. Each player has a "good" Ched but different measurably from the others. So the term "Chedeville from the 20s and 30s does not refer to some immutable ideal set of internal measurements or external rail and table measurements. It simply refers to mouthpieces made (preferably by Henri Chedeville in Philadelphia) on Charles Chedeville blanks from France. Did Charles Ched have access to a rubber blend that gave the mouthpiece greater stability, held facing measurements longer, and even encouraged the production of more overtones? Hill and Chadash, Brad Behn, and Omar Henderson as well as Jody Espina believe the rubber mattered and still matters today. Even if internal molecular structure of the rubber walls does not alter the sound, it is still possible that the molecular layer of the rubber on the inside SURFACE of the tone chamber and bore in contact with the air somehow shapes the sound.
But since there is no ONE model for an authentic Ched mouthpiece from the 20s and 30s, any tech who wants to either copy or interpret a particular Ched from that period is, I suppose, entitled to do so. Possibly the most copied Ched is Harold Wright's. But Wright had more than one Ched, so which one are you going copy or "interpret"? And unless you have access to the Wright Ched that is purportedly copied or interpreted, how can you judge how well the thing has been done? I have played an HW model by Dan Johnston, two different Harold Wright models by Ridenour, the HW and the Wright Homage (both very different from each other), a recent attempt by Michael Drapkin to apply measurements from the notebooks of Everett Matson (Wright's favorite tech) to a Behn Prescott mouthpiece, and I'm presently awaiting an HW mouthpiece from an inspired Canadian designer to try. All of these play differently. Finally, the only thing I can know is how I sound on the mouthpiece and whether I like it or not. None of them ever make me sound like Harold Wright, but some of them help me sound good--and that is enough for me.
I'm not going to march into Jody Espina's office in Savannah holding one of his Ched Elite mouthpieces in hand and demand to try "the original on which this is based." He owns the original and let him have it. I am content to try the copy to see if I like it. And the darker version, the UMBRA Chedeville, is not a copy at all; it is a response to a clarinetist's request to make a darker version of the Elite. That seems fine with me too; it is in the Chedeville spirit of trying different things out from day to day. All I want to know is how they play.
Post Edited (2021-09-14 05:26)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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