Author: NOLA Ken
Date: 2025-07-25 20:47
My experience was just the opposite. Getting swept into "the equipment vortex" was what brought my enthusiasm for the clarinet back to life.
At 19 I was gifted my first pro clarinet. When I entered college I began lessons with former student of Bonade who also played Leblancs. I was not crazy about my instrument because I couldn't make the sound I wanted with the only setup I had to start with. (I was fond of Shaw, Goodman and Fountain.) My teacher - strictly classically trained - hated the instrument. He couldn't get the sound he wanted out of it either. He tried a couple of different mouthpieces (I still have the custom Bonade mouthpiece he gave me) and a couple of barrels and finally gave up declaring that he would not have bought that clarinet. I played it in the marching band for a couple of years (any clarinet would do there) and then put it in the closet in disappointment.
Fifty plus years later after moving to New Orleans I became inspired by the local musicians and pulled my college clarinet out of the closet. Being flush with cash from a successful career I started exploring different clarinets, mouthpieces, ligatures, reeds, etc., exploring not only the world of clarinets equipment but also clarinet sound. In very short order - bingo! - my college clarinet with a completely different mouthpiece, barrel, and ligature (not available to me back then) came alive with just the dark full-throated big-bore sound that had motivated me to play clarinet fifty years ago. (And it tunes wonderfully.)
I could bore people with the details. Suffice it to say that since then I play different clarinets with different mouthpieces with different sounds in different settings just because I like exploring the different sounds and how they satisfy me differently with different music. A sweeter sounding clarinet setup for some orchestral pieces, a big bore "dark" and airy setup for some jazz numbers, sometimes something in between for contemporary concert band music (that's my college clarinet - with different setups it will sort of go both ways and do so well).
Sound (tone quality, timbre, however one wants to refer to it) is an integral part of the aesthetic of music. Yes, one can technically play anything with the one clarinet and one mouthpiece. Other people may be perfectly happy with their preferred one setup. But that doesn't mean that just any old setup will produce a truly aesthetically pleasing and satisfying sound experience for me. And what is most pleasing and satisfying to me is what it's all about.
I'll bet Larry Combs had his hands on a lot of different equipment before he settled on the "legit" setup you heard him play.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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