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Re: Gearheads

Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2022-08-04 23:17

For me there are four very big "gear" issues:

#1 cracked reeds (or wrong strength)
#2 leaking (pads/seats/joints)
#3 bent keys
#4 chipped mouthpieces
#5 physical breaks (ligature, clarinet body, etc.)

Perhaps there are a few more in a similar vein. This is the "above a certain baseline" of which I spoke. Beyond these issues, I feel gear becomes somewhat of a preference for comfort, fun, ease, sound concept, etc.

I've made no argument against spending lavishly if that's what a person wants to do. The price of the "solution" doesn't matter to me for the purposes of this discussion; my post pertains more to the binding of people to the belief that a certain piece of gear will deliver a promised result, or cripple/handicap them if they can't obtain that piece of gear.

Jen (and I mean this in the most sincere and friendly way possible), it saddens me to know that you feel a "non-optimal ligature can make life extraordinarily difficult." To me, this is tragic and restrictive - though it might be true for you.

Unless the ligature is broken, I find that for a high percentage of what I do - the ligature is nearly meaningless/interchangeable - which is extremely liberating. With this piece of hardware being minimized in its importance to me, it also minimizes the chances that it serves as a roadblock to me and what I want to do.

I read an article a few decades back that started me on my way down this viewpoint on gear. It was either "Clarinet" or "Woodwind" magazine or something along those lines: The article was written by a pro player who had bought heavily into the "gear will fix my woes" idea. The player (for a reason I can't remember) ended up needing to replace the ligature. After digging through a drawer of generic old dime-a-dozen ligatures, the musician tried a bunch - only to find that the most basic and generic of them all played better than the high dollar one which was being replaced.

At some point after reading the article, my primary ligature broke and the model was no longer produced. I was using my backup, but realized I needed to find a new solution for the future.

I remembered the article and began skeptically going through my own drawer of ligatures (I was a gearhead at the time). I found some of the Harrison knock-offs made by Rico or BG or whoever made them at the time, I found them to be somewhat clunky. However - I turned them around backward on my mouthpiece - so that the clamp was over my reed, and I (surprisingly) enjoyed the results. I still use this ligature (or replacements of it) to this day - backwards. Works great for me. I've experimented with different ligature ideas and found string works really well for me too.

Now, I don't stress over losing a ligature or having one stepped on/broken, etc. It is very liberating.

I'm not suggesting everyone would come to the same conclusion by any means; but simply pointing out that by eliminating as much gear-dependency as we can, we might find a liberating freedom to create waiting for us on the other side.

There's another point to be made: we aren't all top-notch classical players - nor is that our shared goal. So gear "solutions" past a very rudimentary point aren't equally applicable to our abilities or goals.

Gear is great, but my view is that it should be utilized to remove barriers, not artificially/mentally create them or intimidate us into conformity.

;^)>>>

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Gearheads new

Fuzzy

2022-08-03 00:07