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 Mouthpiece design: the wide throat
Author: Bill 
Date:   2012-06-12 20:36

What is the function/desirability of a blank with a wide throat (windway) opening? I have two Lelandais (I am guessing from the 1950s) that have this.

Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)


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 Re: Mouthpiece design: the wide throat
Author: Paul Aviles 
Date:   2012-06-12 22:42

If you're talking about allowing the baffle to remain wide through the tone chamber, my guess is that this is just an easy way to allow the tone chamber to be made bigger in an attempt to achieve a darker sound.........ultimately by lowering the pitch of the mouthpiece (not a good idea in my opinion). I believe these are also referred to as "A Frame" mouthpieces by Zinner and these are the blanks that Greg Smith chooses NOT to use.



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



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 Re: Mouthpiece design: the wide throat
Author: Vytas 
Date:   2012-06-13 00:41

Wide throat = warmer, more flexible tone.
Narrow throat = more concentrated and focused tone.

Extremes in side walls will create negative effects.

Throat too wide - lacks center and focus.
Throat too narrow - lacks flexibility.

All these aspects are limited by total volume of mouthpiece.

For instance: total volume of Vandoren M-series allows these mouthpieces to play @A-440HZ but you can make a clarinet play impossibly out of tune just by enlarging the throat.

Vytas Krass
Custom clarinet mouthpiece maker
Professional clarinet technician
Former professional clarinet player




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 Re: Mouthpiece design: the wide throat
Author: Bill 
Date:   2012-06-13 03:02

Thank you! As a person who has, out of a broad interest and general enthusiasm, collected many different mouthpieces, I am constantly in the process of trying to define what it is that I like. I have mouthpieces that vary from, for instance, an original Stowell-Wells-Schneider to a Lelandais in which the side walls appear hardly separated from the circumference of the chamber itself.

From time to time I attempt the folly of selecting a "favorite." In the end I am never successful, but I will say the old grenadilla "bottom logo" Buffet mouthpieces come the closest.

Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)


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 Re: Mouthpiece design: the wide throat
Author: Ken Shaw 2017
Date:   2012-06-13 13:22

Ralph Morgan opened up the transition between the throat and the bore from parallel to round. See http://www.clarinetmouthpiece.com/nomenclature.asp. He said that this was the secret to the Chedeville mouthpieces. I could tell the difference between his own rounded and un-rounded mouthpieces, but neither my old Lelandais nor other Chedevilles I've seen had this.

Ken Shaw

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