 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2021-12-15 08:04
I know there are many measurements/attributes to a mouthpiece and not even the same attribute (e.g. tip opening) is necessary measured the same way across manufacturers.
But that said, there seems to be a trend--maybe not--of professional orchestral players towards more open mouthpieces.
By no means need this impact me, but I am curious if this is true, and if so, why it might be the case.
TIA
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Author: kdk
Date: 2021-12-15 19:43
The first question is, are you talking about professional orchestral musicians worldwide or just in the U.S.?
The next question is, how would you know whether anything is a trend among professional orchestral players (regardless of the first answer)? I don't think anyone polls players for their mouthpiece measurements, and I'm not sure how many would respond to a poll if asked. If anyone did that kind of survey, maybe some enterprising doctoral student, the answer to your specific question would be hard to establish because you'd need historical data to compare it to.
Karl
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2021-12-15 20:27
kdk wrote:
> The first question is, are you talking about professional
> orchestral musicians worldwide or just in the U.S.?
I've read about the so called tendency here on the forum. I cannot speak to precisely which geographic region of players this so called trend applies to. I assume it involves American players.
>
> The next question is, how would you know whether anything is a
> trend among professional orchestral players (regardless of the
> first answer)? I don't think anyone polls players for their
> mouthpiece measurements, and I'm not sure how many would
> respond to a poll if asked. If anyone did that kind of survey,
> maybe some enterprising doctoral student, the answer to your
> specific question would be hard to establish because you'd need
> historical data to compare it to.
Discussions on this board pointed to specific models of mouthpieces played by particular players, that tended to be on the large side of the opening spectrum.
Is it possible these mouthpieces aren't being played stock, or that the talk isn't true, or that since the way mouthpiece metrics are calculated are nearly as varied as the manufacturers that make and measure such things, that such talk needs to be taken with "a grain of salt"?
All of the above. 
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-12-15 22:39
I prefer to take on the post more broadly.
Firstly there was another current post that actually made that statement.......which I don't really believe. The approach to mouthpiece facings will ALWAYS be an individual choice that varies according to what the individual or the individual circumstance calls for.
For what it is worth, my experience looking at solely the opening dimension is that the larger mouthpiece opening (and corresponding softer reed) makes it easier to vary pitch and timbre on the fly. That, however is a double edged sword because that flexibility comes with that very variable being a constant factor to work "against you" in wider intervalic relationships as well as quick large changes in dynamics.
That is why, as one predisposed to classical clarinet technique, I prefer "smaller tip openings" which require LESS work to maintain a consistent pitch throughout the range of notes and dynamics. But that ease is relative, and some prefer slightly more "control" over pitch and timbre.
This also explains why jazz players prefer larger tip openings. Just vibrato alone becomes easier (and can be wider). Pitch bends, and glissandi also become easier. I am not saying that one can't do them easily on a "classical" set-up, just that the those techniques sit more comfortably within the wider tip opening.
.....................Paul Aviles
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-12-15 22:47
Mouthpiece preferences seem to fluctuate back and forth rather than go in just one direction. In the 1960s, many symphony pros in the US were using the facing services of Everett Matson in New Jersey. Matson preferred closer facings in the 0.99 mm to 1.05 range and that is what most of the players trained by Bonade recommended for their students. But there were plenty of exceptions. In the Chicago Symphony, Clark Brody played a fairly open Kaspar 14 (1.14 mm at the tip?). But his successor, Larry Combs played a Richard Hawkins model similar to the "S" model with a facing of about 1.02 mm. Stephen Williamson, who followed Combs, plays a more open Jim Pyne mouthpiece designed just for him, and the second clarinet, John Yeh plays a Vandoren BD5 which is fairly open. In the New York Philharmonic in the 1950s, Robert McGinnis played an open Kaspar 16. Stanley Drucker followed him and for many decades played a much closer Alelandais open at 1.03 mm. Anthony McGill succeeded Drucker and plays more open mouthpieces like the Kuckmeier Tosca. In the New Orleans Philharmonic of the late 50s and early 60s, Ron deKant played a Selmer mouthpiece refaced to about 1.02 mm by Matson. Larry Combs followed him with about the same tip opening.
Chris Pell a few years ago in New Orleans was playing a more open Vandoren B40 and the current player in that position plays something similar. Someone could compile stats like these from a large sample of American orchestras over time and then give a more nuanced account of how preferences have changed.
The only study of this kind that I know was done by Cecil Gold (the author of Clarinet Performance Practices in the United States and Canada) in the 1970s, a book out of print but still available in some music libraries. At that time a majority of symphony players seemed to have preferred closer facings both for themselves and their students. But there were always exceptions and Mitchell Lurie, for example, played a Lurie M4 mouthpiece which was open about the same at the tip as the Vandoren B45. The B45 was also favored by Leon Russianoff.
Certainly both the Vandoren B40 lyre and the BD5 (both fairly open mouthpieces) are popular among American symphony players today and are more widely accepted than they probably would have been in the 60s and early 70s. At the famous Colburn school in Los Angeles, these models are popular among students of Michelle Zukovsky and Y. Gilad.
A primary source for a researcher who wants to pursue this topic in detail would be the mouthpiece preferences book that Everett Matson compiled during his long career. For many years, he recorded players' changing preferences there. I believe it still exists, perhaps in a museum. Many major symphony players used his services and their names and facings he duly noted. Andy Stevens in the Colorado Symphony might know the whereabouts of that book.
Post Edited (2021-12-25 00:25)
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Author: McDonalds Eater
Date: 2021-12-24 23:43
I think I can answer this from a younger person’s point of view.
Part of why people are switching to more open mouthpieces is because they see their favorite players using it in concerts on YouTube, podcasts, interviews, etc. I myself got a Vandoren BD5 specifically only because I saw many of my favorite players using it in their recordings and concerts. This of course proved to be a bad choice as I didn’t think twice about how it would respond, feel, etc. But I wasn’t the only one.
Perhaps one of the biggest ones was when Vandoren released the BD5—at one point it felt like 95% of players and students where using it. To name a few, Anthony McGill, Todd Levy, Boris Allahkverdyan, John Yeh, Jon Manasse, Patrick Messina, Pascal Morages, etc. Most of these guys have now moved on, but at some point they used the BD5 for a considerable amount of time. Then everyone else jumped on the train.
Also, nowadays, the sound trend is to obtain a bigger, darker, “blocky” sound as my teacher likes to call it, so players are going to more open mouthpieces in the hopes of achieving that. For example, in most of Europe, the BD5, B40, B40L, and the open Licostinis are really popular.
What baffles me is how most of these guys make open mouthpieces sound easy. Nicolas Baldeyrou played the B40 for a long time; he now plays a BD4 and sounds lovely. Martin Frost plays a BD7, which is around a 1.3 mm opening! He played it in his recent Vivaldi album and it sounded lovely, effortless, and without biting. I got the privilege to have a private lesson (pre-covid) with Anthony McGill back when he was using the Nommos B2 mouthpiece (1.15 mm opening) and he sounded magical. All these guys are also really slim, and don’t have that big of an oral cavity like Ricardo Morales or Corrado, so from time to time I wonder how they make them sound easy without biting. Anyone know?
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Author: kdk
Date: 2021-12-25 01:18
McDonalds Eater wrote:
> Perhaps one of the biggest ones was when Vandoren released the
> BD5—at one point it felt like 95% of players and students
> where using it. To name a few, Anthony McGill, Todd Levy, Boris
> Allahkverdyan, John Yeh, Jon Manasse, Patrick Messina, Pascal
> Morages, etc. Most of these guys have now moved on, but at some
> point they used the BD5 for a considerable amount of time. Then
> everyone else jumped on the train.
>
I'm actually interested to know how you know what mouthpieces all of those players are using. (Not challenging you - I'm genuinely interested in knowing.)
Karl
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Author: McDonalds Eater
Date: 2021-12-25 01:34
Funnily enough I know from watching them online play with their orchestras. Whenever the cameras zoom in on the clarinet section, you can see the mouthpiece logo.
I also know a bit from talking with my student friends or reading online forums, interviews, podcasts, etc.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-12-25 05:24
I keep track of fashions in mouthpieces as an amusing hobby, and I can vouch that the players mentioned by McDonalds Eater have--at least most of them--at some point played the Vandoren BD5.
Baldeyrou in his many YouTube videos has often specified which mouthpiece he is his playing, and they range from BD40 to BD5 to BD4. He also did a video playtesting the CL4 and CL5 when they first came out. Several sites (included DANSR) quote testimony from Manasse and Yeh praising the BD5. I had occasion to ask Yeh by email what he was playing, and he said it was a BD5. In 2015, Vandoren Paris on their Facebook page thanked Patrick Messina for adopting the BD5 clarinet mouthpiece, and when I corresponded with him about a ligature he had designed for a Korean company. he mentioned that he was playing the BD5 mouthpiece. Pascal Moragues has a YouTube video praising the BD5
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Pascal+Moragues+talking+about+Vandoren+BD5. Moragues also appeared in an ad on the Nick Kuckmeier site praising the Austrian Play-Easy mouthpieces, all of which have fairly open facings. Some techs say that Moragues might have influenced Vandoren to produce the BD5 as a sort of "answer" to the Kuckmeier pieces, though I can't confirm that. It is easy to see (as McDonalds Eater suggests) that McGill is playing some of Kuckmeier's newer model mouthpieces, also with open facings. Many photos of Boris Allakhverdyan clearly show the characteristic BD series logo on his mouthpieces. Frost used to say on his website that he played mouthpieces made by Jim Kanter but he's been pretty open about promoting the Vandoren BD series pieces. Morales reported in several videos some years ago that he played a Backun MoBa C mouthpiece with a close 0.99 mm facing. But recently he has openly adopted the BD5D more open mouthpiece that also has thicker rails and an intended "Germanic" sound. Vienna Music will tell you that they stock the very model Vandoren Morales plays. And so it goes.
Most players are open to frequency changing mouthpieces, so that is a very
skittish thing that cannot be "nailed down." Most players even at the highest levels don't mind saying which mouthpiece they are playing (at the time you ask them). Out of many I have asked, only two have preferred not to say.
Not everybody likes the present trend toward a broader, heavier sound and more open facings. On the clarinet mouthpiece blog, someone put up a YouTube snippet from 2016 of Gregory Raden visiting the Vandoren showroom and testing an M13 lyre mouthpiece as an example of how they like the clarinet to sound. I heard Raden play a Weber Concerto at the ICA at LSU in Baton Rouge and vastly preferred the way he sounded to the players I knew were using a Vandoren B40. There is never really a consensus. McGinnis in the 50s when close facings like the Selmer HS* (open less than 1.00 mm) were the norm, used an open Kaspar 16 at 1.16 mm and didn't seem to lose any sleep over his choice. Nor did he make a big deal of it either. ,
Raden and M. Wayne have some relevant things to say about clarinet tone and equipment selection in this video, which is followed by the Video of Raden playing a Vandoren M13 Lyre (1.02 mm tip) at the Vandoren studio in NY.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gregory+raden+what+is+a+good+clarinet+tone.
Here's Raden playing the first movement of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Grand+Teton+Music+Mozart+clarinet+Quintet.
Post Edited (2021-12-25 23:30)
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Author: HANGARDUDE
Date: 2021-12-25 20:39
Andrew,
As someone who knows many pro orchestral musicians in North America & Europe personally, I'd put my answer to your question this way:
While there is certainly greater popularity with more open mouthpieces among pro orchestral players than the decades before, I do not think that it's a dominant trend or a minority, but rather varies widely depending on the individual player/section. I think the probability of finding a pro orchestral Bb player preferring a 1.00-1.05 tip opening is about as high as someone preferring a 1.20-1.25 opening. Same goes for bass clarinetists. You'll still find many players preferring tip openings below 2.00, but with the rising popularity of very open mouthpieces like the Vandoren B50/Selmer Concept/similar mpcs by 'boutique' craftsmen you are bound to find players(I know several personally incl. my former mentor) who prefer such openings over those under 2.00 aka what is normally considered an 'orchestral bass mpc'.
In other words: YMMV.
Josh
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2021-12-26 04:23
"All these guys are also really slim, and don’t have that big of an oral cavity like Ricardo Morales or Corrado"
Being slim gives you a smaller oral cavity???
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Author: hans
Date: 2021-12-26 04:54
Re: "Being slim gives you a smaller oral cavity???"
The sleep apnea risk factors list from the Mayo Clinic states that "...People with thicker necks might have narrower airways...".
See: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sleep-apnea/symptoms-causes/syc-20377631
Hans
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Author: kdk
Date: 2021-12-26 05:22
hans wrote:
> The sleep apnea risk factors list from the Mayo Clinic states
> that "...People with thicker necks might have narrower
> airways...".
Well, the Mayo article does say that, but the context is different from exhaling into a wind instrument.
For one thing, the symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea occur mostly when the sleeper inhales. The "airway" depicted by the diagrams is primarily at the back of the tongue and the end of the soft palate in the nasopharyngeal area. When the sleeper inhales, that area is basically sucked closed, obstructing inhalation. Blowing out wouldn't cause this closure.
For another thing, the pharyngeal area is really a little farther back than the "oral cavity" or mouth area that we are able to control and try to shape when we play. I don't know what relationship exists between internal mouth volume - oral cavity size - and a player's physical build, but I don't think this paragraph on the Mayo Clinic's website establishes it.
Karl
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