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Re: Vintage, or Vintage Clone?

Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2006-01-04 01:48

Replying to Omar and to observations by others:

I may have a slightly different, perhaps unique perspective, coming from the background of being both a performing professional symphony clarinetist and a mouthpiece handcraftsman. Then again, perhaps not.

Trying to be as objective as possible though, I honestly do not think that it matters whether one needs to play on an original or vintage anything to sound their best and feel most comfortable (the two for the most part seem to be inextricably bound). Too much is made of a seemingly artificial differentiation.

Just the experience of observing one's everyday's personal, unique choices in life generally should be instuctive as to the situation, if not just as a general principle.

One of the things that I have the biggest problem identifying with is the notion that because a large group of professionals play machine made, or more specifically Vandoren mouthpieces, that therefore favor amongst top professionals lean to the Vandoren company because of the quality of their mouthpieces. There are several reasons that I find this observation misleading insofar as the all-important "personal choice" is concerned.

Although I am not in the position of speaking for or about everyone (or anyone in particular), my observations based on my experience from being in the business is several-fold.

To reiterate what I've said in an earlier post, "Those that play machine made mouthpieces at the highest level in the profession are playing one mouthpiece in fifty - prescreened by testers in and outside of the company - or end up going through many, many a mouthpiece themselves. Or, if not, a very high degree of luck has been visited upon them."

Further, factor in that:

There is a proportion of the VD mthpc. professionals that are primarily looking for publicity and compensation - monetary or otherwise. This is true throughout the entire realm of musical products but does not eliminate VD per se. Call me a purist but it's also why I personally choose not to procure endorsements or accept endorsements as my philosophy is that the product should speak for itself.

As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, there is a relatively large subset of individuals that have not the time, energy, desire, locale, etc, to try the many handmade mouthpieces that are presently being made by more than a handfull of handcraftsman. Most clarinettists outside the US and Canada (primarily Europe and Asia) have had little or no exposure to any handcrafted mouthpieces until the relatively recent past - and even then, only to a very few types that cannot be customised to the individual player by the handcraftsman themselves. It's almost axiomatic that that kind of vacumn would lead one down the road to the default position of finding the best of whatever is available in the most quantity.

The final point being that with the vast distribution network internationally of a huge company over many decades making VD mthpcs ubiquitous through the networking that only a huge international corporation's financial resources could generate and sustain, has contributed disproportionately making them a forerunner for exactly those reasons.

Factoring out for those top professional players that fit any of the above criteria, it becomes apparent to me anyway, that there is not a substantial majority of those players that play VD mthpcs. purely because it is the best mouthpiece available for them.

But what do I know? I used to play the now defunct Morre reeds but have chosen to play Vandoren V12's since then - and only after trying every reed mthpc. combination I could get my hands on.

I'm not trying to slight Vandoren or Vandoren artists in general because I truly believe that there are a number of top professionals that know their VD is the best for them. I'm just trying to suggest that there are powerful, sometimes overwhelming undercurrents in the music business that don't necessarily leave one with as clear an impression as one may think at first blush.

Gregory Smith

Post Edited (2006-01-04 01:52)

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Brenda Siewert

2005-12-29 15:16