Author: Bill
Date: 2005-04-15 15:41
Thanks for your suggestions and comments about Wells mouthpieces.
I have a Wells of Chicago B2. I got it as a package deal for $250 along with a gold-plated Harrison ligature, an old-style Selmer table HS*, and two Selmer "oval" table mouthpieces. The gentleman from whom I bought the items was very interesting. He had lost a young son to, I believe, drug usage. We corresponded briefly, and I always found his messages filled with pithy observations and warmth. I have never broken up the "collection" of items I obtained from him, as each of them seems to have a subjectively "good" karma.
But good karma or not, the Wells, with its unqiue window slot, its ultra-narrow windway, and its overall shape, seems over-designed for an item that plays awfully (for me). I also use Gonzalez reeds, and my 3.75's and 4.0's choke the Wells, whereas the 3.0's are much to soft. So my first problem with it is that I can't seem to make it happy with a reed.
Certainly I think it is time for it to undergo a touch-up. But here I find a bizarre frustration. A Wells (or a Borbeck 13 or a Kaspar) back from the refacer is a different thing altogether from what its famous-name maker designed it to be. A Vandoren when it comes back is just "better."
The mouthpiece plays right now with a total fuzziness and lack of center, like fixing a reed onto a wool sock. When I seem to identify a reed of the proper strength, it's much too resistant, and softer reeds sound too shrill.
Oh well (pardon the pun), I'm not getting rid of it tomorrow. But I doubt if I'll be playing either.
Bill.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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