Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-05-23 04:01
I always take some excerpts and etudes with me when trying out new mouthpieces. The Polatschek Advanced Studies are great for this because they make you play passages designed to meet the actual demands of composers rather than the caprices of noodling. No noodler would ever spontaneously play the interval successions in Polatschek study #12 (after Bedrich Semetana), because they are awkward, require an intense air stream, supple embouchure, and unbroken concentration, yet that is exactly the kind of disciple a clarinetist needs to meet the non-ego requirements of music written by other people. No one pays us to noodle.
Playing an entire etude, from start to finish, in meter, places stress on the performer and the mouthpiece that noodling does not. There is never any question such as "will I get through this noodle"; but many players negotiating the rapids and rocks of the 15th Etude in Jeanjean's 18 Etudes may wonder if there is light at the end of that demanding Impressionist tunnel. A mouthpiece that gets you through the technical and musical demands of that etude without squeaks, falsely overblown 12ths, grunts or undertones, and delayed speaking of 12ths is likely to get you through anything--much more than a mouthpiece that is merely "fun" to play and flattering to your best side.
Thurston's Passage Studies, Book 3, also has some great stuff that is totally non-self-indulgent, and makes the player ask all the hard questions that need to be asked about the mouthpiece's objective performance.
Finally, down through the years, I have seen many clarinetists buy mouthpieces that flattered some part of their noodling ego, such as big sound, for instance ("Wow, my sound is as big as a house on this thing") yet the mouthpieces failed when called upon to perform in soft entrances, or tied the throat up in lengthy articulation, or did not tune or blend well. If the mouthpiece will make delicate entrances like the Pines of Rome and allow rapid arpeggiated staccato such as in The Story of a Solider, and tune well, a good player should make the effort (and, as you said, select the right reeds) to learn to like it.
Such a mouthpiece may not flatter the player but is likely to do justice to the music the player is performing.
Post Edited (2014-05-23 04:49)
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