Welcome to the clarinet ninja podcast. My name is Jay Hassler. As always, bringing you the finest in clarinet
information and entertainment. Playing us in today is Mr. Aaron Irwin, uh, a
wonderful creative jazz musician and clarinetist. Uh, if you like what you hear, I'm going to leave some links down
in the show notes in the description so that you can check out more of his work. Today on the podcast, we have Brad Bane.
I got to know Brad Bane because he made the world's most revolutionary read
case. Then I tried his barrels. Woo! So good. His mouthpieces. Amazing. Uh and
then uh we became friends cuz I started going to the clarinet convention. And the clarinet convention is fun. If
you're thinking about going to the clan convention, don't hesitate. Just do it. Uh get to get to meet a lot of people
and some fine people. And Brad is one of the finest of the fine people. The first half of the conversation is here for you
today and uh it it's a wide-ranging conversation about making stuff, playing the clarinet, the challenges when the
world shut down and the beauty of when the world shut down in a strange way.
It's all here for you. Uh and also there's something waiting for you at clarinet ninja.com. Uh and that is uh an
invitation to check out the clarinet ninja dojo. That's where you get to spend some time with me every week
learning the clarinet and videos that are made just for the dojo. What we're working on helps adult clarinet players
find their unique path uh through uh learning the clarinet and uh some people
are making some really really great progress and I'd love for you to be one of them. So uh go ahead and check it out. There's two different levels of the
dojo. One of them is right for you I'm quite sure and I'd love to see you there. Uh, so please go ahead and check
it out and uh, email me uh, sign up for an appointment, a 45minute free appointment with me if you want to on
the calendarly link on the Ninja Dojo page. It's all down there in the description for you. Uh, but no further
ado, please enjoy the first half of my conversation with Brad Mine. How are you? You did better than me with a nice
shirt thing. Well, here's what I want to tell you. You actually helped correct one of the
problems I didn't know I had in my life. it when you said, "I'm going to wear a nice shirt." I thought to myself and
then I said, "I'm going to wear a nice shirt." You didn't really react, which is fine. But here's what it did. When I
was in like sixth grade, my friends CB, Matt, Jud, Tim, and Sven would all call
each other the night before school and say, "Let's wear ties tomorrow." And they never included me. And it hurt. Oh,
cool. So, like the fact that we had an exchange about, you know, hey, we're going to wear nice shirts. I felt very
included and it repaired a lot of the damage I was unaware of, you know, and I think that's one of the things that, you
know, the clarinet really in so many ways brings us together and really helps
us with lots of things we didn't even know were real problems. But I felt I I felt it. That is fantastic. I absolutely
love that. And by the way, I think your shirt is fantastic. I mean my father painted. Where is it? He did that
painting back there. That's beautiful. Yeah. Was he a professional painter or was that just something? No, he ret when
he retired. But you know the art was always part of my life. My grandfather
was definitely a you know a renaissance man, a poet, a sculptor, an artist, a
screenplay, a songwriter. And my father just being surrounded by it was always
having art as an important part of his life. And when he retired, he then took
on the the uh the joy of painting and learning, you know, just basic stuff. He
never really went beyond this kind of uh you know, I don't know what I'm not
an art historian to be able to describe the style, but it's abstract. It's not a literal interpretation for Well, but
it's interesting. I when I was talking to Ron Odrich a couple years ago for a YouTube video, Yeah. One of the things
that he I mean he does everything. He's he's an amazing person and it was the
same kind of story is oh my dad just did all this stuff and then I thought that's what people do basically you know and
it's it's interesting how that can really show up in our lives. Well, you know, it's it's interesting when the
pandemic hit. At that point, I was retired from being a college professor
for a few years and uh and then the the
you know, I had a couple of private students and I continued through the pandemic teaching them through Zoom. But
uh you know after a few years of doing that the student one went off to to
college and the other one she was you know she was done with her experience and we stopped and then I don't have any
students anymore. I've been focusing so much on the mouthpiece business. So my uh Zoom Zoom experience is like two or
three times a year and I'm just not in my headsp space with it anymore. Yeah. I mean I I still remain on Zoom multiple
hours a week, you know, at least at least three hours a week, usually more. But it's still funny because like every once in a while something that came
really naturally to me in the pandemic. Click click click click click boom boom boom. I got every once in a while I got to stop and think about it because also
the program updates and things aren't in the same place all the time. Yeah. So that's that that's the thing. You know
Tom Holski he always jokes Zoom they they keep on doing updates and it never gets better.
But here's what's funny to me is I didn't know technology like this. I knew like Skype existed but I didn't really ever use it. You know, I never really
thought that this would become such a central part of my life. And it reminds me of that that old uh Louis CK bit
where he's in an airplane. He's pretending he's in an airplane. He's like, "Ah, my cell phone won't work." And and and then his his bit on the
whole thing is you're flying through the air, you know, thousands of miles high and you're upset this is a miracle. And
you're upset that your cell phone won't work. And I feel like, you know, I feel like Zoom works really really well considering, you know, it's kind of
amazing. It's a good point on on that airplane thing. I remember I had this mouthpiece case that a friend of mine
made. This is years years ago and he made this beautiful mouthpiece box out of maple wood, flaming maple. It's just
the texture was just beautiful. And Eddie Daniels was we were doing I was doing in the orchestra. He was the guest
artist and I was showing it to him. Oh, I just love that. And he said but and then he got into this like you know this
fetching kind of right you know and and he said yeah but will it protect the
mouthpiece? And I said, "Of course, I'll put this got padding here." He said, "Yeah, but I want to be able to jump out
of an airplane and have the parachute not be open and not break my tip." They
said, "Well, if your tip doesn't break, you're you consider it consider it a victory." Those are some very, very
seriously uh high expectations of a product. He might be dead, but his mouthpieces are okay, right? They'll
live in perpetuity. Um, I'm curious during the pandemic, did like what what
was the mouthpiece business like during the pandemic? Did you sell more mouthpieces because people were at a home playing and you were sending them
out or was it did your business slow down? No, it it actually boomed. The
pandemic did two things. One, you remember everybody came in and we had this community, all these different
communities. So, you could find many different sorts whether you wanted to look for politics or if you wanted to talk about clarinet. remember Andy Simon
did those clarinet licorice talks or whatever where he had his his you know various people and and you know so so
many different really interesting things were going on where we were started to sh and and so I did some Facebook you
know just videos showing my mouthpieces and what I was up to so that was very helpful for business and um and I my
read tutorials on Facebook that was you know just got people focusing on on Bane
hey who is this guy and then also I was able to focus on the business more
because I you know usually I'm doing so many different things the business is is is a big thing the orchestra and before
that I was also bit busy with teaching that I could only give each endeavor you know like half time I had three or four
full-time jobs and I was able to give them all halfime right push and and so I
I I was no longer neglecting it I was giving it 150% of my energy and
exploring new designs and and all of these different things and in the the the end the sum of all of those actions
I think the business grew. I'm still enjoying the rewards from that uh time.
Pandemic was very good to us and we didn't shut down. I mean, you know, in the coasts the city shut down. They
couldn't people couldn't go to work. We had I had two guys that were coming in full-time every day working and you
know, we all wore masks and we made mouth pieces. Well, I feel like that environment is conducive to staying
functional in the midst of a pandemic because you can space yourself out. You don't have to be on top of each other and and also the sphere of people you're
seeing is really really small. And he said that was pretty much the whole thing was like limit the number of people you see to limit your potential
exposure. And it seems like that that would work really really well in that context. Yeah, I think you're absolutely
right. I mean, it was it was wonderful. There was no traffic. You know, you're driving along and you go to the shop and
it was quiet. It was kind of a peaceful, you know, time to be inward. Was Amelia was a very young little girl at the
time, right? Yeah. She she was more focus on her. Yeah. She was like two and a half when when the pandmic started.
And uh how lucky she was for the pandemic in a weird way, right? Yeah. She didn't miss much, right? I mean, she
got to go to kindergarten on time and and all that. And uh yeah, I mean the the pandemic had a a really up and down
thing for me after all is said and done cuz you know I've I've you know my online program and the teaching online
and the stuff that's happening with adult learners in my program is unbelievable to me. Like every once in a
while I stop and I think my god I I started this thing and I really think it's amazing. Like I and the people that
are in it are working really really hard. They're getting a lot of stuff out of it. So, that would have never happened without the pandemic because I
was I could send emails and that was about all I could do with a computer. So, I had to learn a lot of stuff and I learned that I like filming videos. I
learned that I like audio equipment. I learned that I like doing all this stuff, but I never would have done any of it if the pandemic didn't happen. But
then on the flip side, I was married when the pandemic started and now I'm not. And and I, you know, there was a of
course a lot of factors that go into that, but that certainly was a stress. Yeah. You know, in in all of it. and I
wasn't the one that chose not to be married. So, like, you know, it that was that was hard. But my life now uh is is
because of the pandemic in a strange way really kind of turned itself around where I'm doing a lot of different
things. One of the things I learned was that I love performing music, but I'm also okay not doing that as much, which
I didn't know, right? And I mean, I had no idea that I would still be me and I would be okay if I wasn't playing in
front of people all the time. I mean, so now I work a couple weekends a month and
do a lot more teaching both in my full-time job at a middle school and online. And my life is balanced a lot
better. And freelancing is is no joke. It's it's a really hard thing to do and
it's it's a very insecure life. So, like there's a so much of what I'm doing now,
I would have never chosen it for myself, but I love it. Okay, it's it's a much better choice and and I didn't feel like
I made a choice. It kind of happened to me. But I think that that's I mean, you tell me if this is true. Like I feel
like a lot of what happens in our life is kind of what you make of whatever happened to you and how you find a way to fit into it and be yourself. And it's
well that's the first thought that I had when you were describing you know like what a unbelievable turmoil and uphill
in life just the pandemic was add to that you've got a baby like a young
toddler a toddler and you've got a marriage which goes from here to here
and you're building the you're learning and uncovering new things about yourself and you're like like you are a winner
man to to be able to come through all of that on the upside, you know, there are
a lot of people that would have that would have beaten them down and you know, here we are able to laugh together just a few years down the road. That's
amazing. Um, well, thank you for saying such nice things. It's funny like now the thing that is an issue for me is how
and I think it's kind of what you were saying is there's so much to do. There's just so much to do now that I've created
this thing that I love that I love more than performing music is, you know, my this online program that I'm doing. I
love it so much. I there's so much stuff I want to do. I can't really ever stop working. Yeah. Yeah. And and I I love
it, but there are times I would like to just sit and not feel like I should be doing something else. Right. But well,
and I'm curious in terms of your your ecosystem with all the different products you make. And so I'm just going
to call them out right now. Uh read cases, mouthpieces, and barrels. Hey.
Hey. bells reads. Could you just basically work all the time? Is I mean I I feel
like you could just make stuff 24 hours a day and and probably that would be the right
amount of time for you to work. I mean I I kind of Yeah, I could. I mean and I kind of do uh you know I sleep I I'm a
good sleeper so that's very fortunate. You know I'll go to bed at 10:30 and I'll wake up at 7:30 and I'm you know
and just repeat, right? But um because we love what we do, you know,
we have the energy to do a lot of it and not feel broken
down or beaten down. And because there's so many different facets to what we do,
you know, like if I get after an hour and a half or two hours on the bench where I'm working on a mouthpiece, I can
step into another nook and and fill a couple of orders that came in and then I
can go have a snack and then I can go and do another another thing on the on the on the mouthpieces. And then I can
uh Oh, I was thinking, oh, you know, if I just did this little tweak on the mouthpiece that I'm working on. Well,
maybe that's a cool idea we should incorporate in the next design that we do. Take a note and then I talk to my
engineer and we we we pow on that and I'll go down to the factory and I'll check on how production is going. You
know, it's like there's always something to do and this new thing to do which keeps it interesting. Well, like I'm
curious to know about this. It's like sometimes when I think about Bame and him designing his fingering system, like
how many times he had to make something, drill a hole in it, and then have it not
work out like he wanted, and then have to start all over again. Like, like, and I'm curious to know like when you are
working on mouthpieces and you're working on a new design, like there must be many iterations of that before you
actually figure it out. And I'm curious to know about that, but also about sort of the emotional impact on you. Like do
you feel frustrated like oh I thought I this this was it and it's then it's and then you got to start over again. This
tell me about that. Yeah, for sure. Um you know I'm reminded there was a Flint
Fred Flintstones episode. I don't I don't know if our younger generation watches that show anymore, but he and his buddy, his neighbor Barney, they
were working on some kind of a concoction in the in the garage, a soft drink. And you know, remember seven
times, eight times, 11 up or whatever, you know, they they keep on reinventing it and the number was associated to the
the invention that was finally a success. For me, the equivalent experience was recently we were working
on an Eflat clarinet mouthpiece. And uh years ago, I had I was working with a
CNC machine shop that was not my own. And they were making on my designs. They were making my mouthpiece blanks for me
and then I would hand finish them. And so I had a batch of partially made Eflat clarinet mouthpieces, just the body and
that the tenon was cut and the bore was cut. And so I had some limitations. I was con by the confines of the
pre-existing shape. So I had a bore that was already a predetermined length and I have a body that was so I could make a
chamber that was so so long. But I wanted it to be different than my last design because I you know time moves
forward and I'm looking for something a little slightly different voice over the experience. And so to make the sound a
little bit darker deepen the baffle. But if you deepen the baffle the chamber gets bigger. the total volume gets larger.
The total intonation drops and I couldn't go too low. So, I was making the bore a little bit smaller to to
value out the the intonation. But then a weird thing starts to happen. When the bore gets smaller, it changes the
intonation in the upper left hand. It can drop, which is cool. On a lot of E flat clarinets, the intonation in the
upper left hand is sharp, right? I went too far, right? And so, like, why is my
B 20 cents flat? Who knew on the E flat clarinet that that could be the case?
Well, I was so from this, you know, got to redo it, redesign it, cut another
one, and try again. And we were doing this in a 3D printing side of things.
So, the prototyping process was relatively fast and relatively inexpensive. We weren't consuming our
expensive hard rubber to do it. We went through about a dozen maybe maybe eight iterations until we found the formula.
And uh the good thing is because of all of these failures, we learned a lot. I
mean, I I highly recommend failing in life. There's no better way to learn,
you know? Get a D in philosophy, man. Yeah. Be a middle middle of the road
student because then you've got a something to strive for. I mean, if we're always nailing it all the time,
then we don't really have a perspective on life. You know, Chuck Schumer got a perfect score on his SAT. Did you know
that? I didn't know that. Well, you just say I just wanted it from you. If you didn't know it, how do I I mean, you
know, there are people out there who are really bright, right? But, you know,
they've got their own, you know, set of problems in life, too. So, you know, I'm not saying anything about him, but it
just was a thing that popped in my mind. I would have loved to have gotten a perfect score on my SAT, but I didn't.
And I think that I'm a lot intellectually diverse as a result of me
being an average student. I had to strive to fight to scramble to to to
solve the problems and I learned a lot along the way. So yeah, it's a it's a b mix mixed bag and how we struggle how we
get how what we do to get to the top like you did through the pandemic and I
did with that Eflat clarinet mouthpiece um I think can help define who we
become. Well, so much of it for me comes down to me hearing what I say to my
daughter and realizing how right I am and that I should take some of that advice sometimes. Like I was telling her
the other day and she's seven, so this is too much for her a little bit. But but I try and plant ideas so that cuz I
tell her, you know, like a lot of this stuff I didn't learn till I was in my 40s. I want you to have a head start.
And one of the things I was telling her, you know, is it's not going to work if you wake up every day and think it's going to be a perfect day. And if
something goes wrong, you're disappointed. Something's going to go wrong every day. And it's just a matter
of recognizing it, doing what you can to fix it, recognizing if you can't fix it, and making the right moves from that
point. But dismiss the part about being disappointed. It didn't go like you wanted it to cuz some part of every day
is going to be like that. And that's it. You know, like, and it's not even a negative thing, but it's it's how you
respond to it, how you take take it in and and change things. Like it's it's so
much of all this I I feel like after you know to play the clarinet like I'll say
it like we do like you had to spend so many hours in a room by yourself. It's not like anyone you know can just play
the clarinet or any instrument. But since we're talking about clarinet like you have to things have to go wrong.
There's almost there's there's too many things. And then even after you practice and practice and practice and practice, how many times have any of us had a
perfect performance? And if we thought we did, when we hear a recording of it, it's nowhere near what we thought it, you know, it's so this whole idea of it
not working out right is baked into learning a musical instrument. And I I feel like that's something that is like
when I see uh my middle school kids struggle with the frustration of not being able to repeat something that they
can do sometimes. Like I I I really recognize they don't particularly kids today and all the swiping and all the
things and the computers the the the mechanics of things and their fine motor
skills are much different than when you and I were kids and we built things. We had, you know, we had we had toys with
screws in them that we would screw in. Kids don't do that anymore. And it's it's very interesting to see how it goes
and to see what their learning, you know, their learning system or, you know, like how it is they take the information in and make it
repeatable in some way. It's a very interesting thing to see because so much of it is a really stripped down version
of all the challenges I have, right? It's it's a it's so clear. And then I realized, you know, I've got that same
thing. And it's so a lot of what I have gotten in particularly in the last seven years since having a kiddo is really
learning from what I think is important enough to say and and that's that's been a really a really interesting thing for
me. You were talking about your expensive, you know, hard rubber and I and I've already heard you talk about
it, but I love to hear you talk about it. So, will you tell us about because I think that that's that's a thing that is
really it is absolutely unique to you, right? that you make you make your own
rubber and you make your own blank and then you go from there. Tell me if I'm wrong. I've never I don't know any other mouthpiece maker that does that.
Um well, I think there are some mouthpiece makers who claim to do it.
And I can't say with certainty whether or not they do it, but I can I I can say
that there's rubber and then there's rubber and you know the materials and um
leave leave the market to to decide. But I, you know, ultimately I'm very proud that we manage everything from concept
to completion. You know, we make our our hard rubber. We make our uh designs and
we prototype them in-house in our US factory and and down the road from where we live and um everything else in in in
between, you know. Yes, there are mouthpieces. You know, basically when you when you look at a mouthpiece, it's a mouthpiece. There's little, you know,
to an untrained eye that's that's different about it. So what makes me
different is we're in control of the material and you know no one else has it.
Um, we also, I will add, you know, I do have a mouthpiece patented design that
no one else has access to. And we're also I think we add a lot of creative
ideas to the mouthpiece design. Um, you know, with the baffle contours and the
chamber lengths versus bore lengths and, you know, bore shapes and such. all of
those designs that you know options that we have have been I think more
completely thought through and are more varied in their um choices. I mean, I'm
I'm sometimes surprised. I don't want to be seeming critical, but I'm sometimes quite surprised when I look at the
saxophone side of the double read equation. I mean, sorry, the single read equation. Uh, they have a lot more
creativity. You know, they've got round chambers and square chambers and, you
know, step baffles and, you know, deep chambers and, you know, like where the where the chamber is larger than the
boar. And you know, I'm just that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many different things and so many
different styles and sounds, you know, like there could be a guy who plays, you
know, Billy Joel style rock, you know, music and then, you know, somebody
playing classical alto saxophone. Those two instruments hardly sound like the same instrument, yet they are. It's the,
you know, the saxophone, the alto saxophone. Uh so the clarinet is a much
smaller playing ground of accepted acceptable sounds and styles to to I
think an unfortunate degree. you know, we can go outside of our American, you
know, sensibilities and think about what's going on in Turkey or Greece or, you know, Balkans and and and and really
stretch our ears, but it's not just in our own home turf nearly as wide of a
spectrum of of sounds as in on the the saxophone side of of things. So the
clarinet designers and makers of mouthpieces really haven't needed to
stretch their brains and I find it really fun and I find it you know sure
again some of those ideas that we've explored have not been successes and others have been really profound for us
and we've baked a lot of those learning pro learning the results of that learning process into our mainstream
uh mouthpiece models. Uh, I can't remember if I even remotely answered
your question, you know. Oh, the rubber. Yeah. Yeah, you didn't answer that question. I'll
ask it again later. Uh, but in hearing you talk about it, the thing is that I it's interesting to me is that my I got
a good friend uh named Evan Christopher. I don't know if you're familiar with this plane. He's a New Orleans jazz planet player and he he plays on an
Albert system a completely different sound than than I make. And and I'm thinking about that idea of someone
playing, you know, rock and roll saxophone versus classical saxophone, how different the sound is. And I feel
like there is that range. And when he talks about it, he talks about that
music basically being like an an ethnic folk music, like you're talking about the music in Turkey or Greece. And there
is something about that type of playing that doesn't lend itself to getting
hyper excited about equipment. Because I feel like like so many of like the New so many people that came out of the New
Orleans tradition, you know, they would they'd be doing parades with their instruments, right? That they would they would leave the case at the end of the
parade and then drive back to the beginning of the parade and with their instrument out of the case and then play in the parade and put it back in the
case at the end, which I would never do that with my in like, you know, like there's so many different things that
made it so that equip they couldn't really get that particular with the equipment. They were using whatever was
there and whatever worked at the time. And I feel like, you know, when I talk to Evan, he's particular about his
mouthpiece, but I just don't think there's probably much of a market for it as from a business standpoint. There's
far less people playing New Orleans jazz than there is rock and roll saxophone or classical saxophone. There's just a lot
there's a lot more people in that. And I also think, tell me what you think about this. I feel like saxophone is an
instrument that gets played recreationally much more than the clarinet, which I think accounts for a
lot of that because there's lots of different places and styles to play and ways to do it without an institution.
Like if you're going to play orchestral clarinet, you need an orchestra and that requires a lot of people and not very
many clarinet players. So, but you know, if if you're playing in bar bands, there's bar bands everywhere and people
are not showing up or can't do it or you know, so there's lots of opportunities and and we I don't think we have that
sort of way in to playing the clarinet as much. Um, that's actually one of the
things that I am always interested with my students to talk about, okay, what what do you want to do with the
clarinet? Where do you want to play this? Where are you playing it now? What are you looking for in terms of a goal? because
it's it is a smaller segment of things that somebody who can play in a jazz band or a bar band or wants to play in a
community band or at a church or you know like there's lots of things with the saxophone and there's less there's
just a few less of those things with the clarinet. So yeah, I never thought about it from a the standpoint of somebody
conceiving of making mouthpieces for different uses, right? Which is why talk to you but so about about this rubber
you start with what to make the rubber. So rubber hard rubber is a com combination of of different ingredients.
The essential ingredients are uh hard rubber natural latex from the rubber
tree, right? And sulfur and uh Charles Goodyear
accidentally invented it. He was an inventor and he um was trying to find a
way to become wealthy. He was struggling struggling with different ideas and uh
he was trying he had a contract with the post office where he was making the bags
I think burlap bags that they carried the mail in so that they're waterproof
and uh you know because you know if the mail would get destroyed if if it gets
wet all those letters written with those fountain you know the quill pens and what have would just bleed and turn into
a big inky mess. So, uh, he, you know, he made a lot of money with this with this contract by impregnating,
uh, rubber latex into the texture of the the the fabric. And the problem was that
in the winter, the bag would become completely inflexible. It would just freeze into a into a big mess. And in
the summer, it would become gooey and sticky and melty in the hot weather. and he got in big trouble for his you know
contract not fulfilling the requirements of their needs. So um he almost went to
jail but he was experimenting with how can he make this material stable and uh
he was you know just you know in his kitchen stirring you know ingredients with the latex rubber to try to make it
you know less volatile from different temperatures. But his it was in the kitchen. So the stove, you know, back
then they'd have the stove there. It was always on, you know, fire underneath and it was always just simmering with heat.
So he spilled some of this gooey material that he was mixing, rubber and sulfur on the stove top and it
vulcanized right then and there. It it it cooked. And then he discovered that material became stable. It didn't change
due to, you know, after it cooled down and was vulcanized fully. he discovered that it was uh good to go. So more
experimentation and he became uh you know saved by his his accidental
discovery. Most inventions are, you know, many inventions anywhere by accident. And that was the beginning of,
you know, the the new plastics re u revolution of what was
that was the end of the 1800s, the end of the 19th century. And into the late 19th century and early 20th century, the
you know the the world's industry embraced this new hard rubber plastic
material and invested a great deal of um research. Laboratories became dedicated
to it to try to find uh learn more about it. Excuse me.
And so then over time, you know, labs
and manufacturing facilities started exploring with
additives, accelerants so it could could cure quicker, stabilizers so it wouldn't
be so volatile and change its form during the cooking process. Over the course of time, the sound of mouthpieces
from those early days, the hard rubber that was made became less attractive to
my opinioned ears and many others.
Um nowadays people don't really think about it I think as much as they should but basically the the the rubber as
those accelerants and additive stabilizers entered the the the fray the
sound became duller and less with with less um fewer overtones and and less
color and it just it was became more boring of a sound. And
um uh so our rubber without getting into the the the trade secret side of things
is absent those accelerants and additives. It's a very pure essential
ingredients combination. And as a result, we have to make the hard rubber rods because they, you know, they are
not as consistent and and perfect in form from batch to batch because it's
quite volatile. It's not very stable during the cooking process because it's absent those
stabilizers. Um, but it has a better sound and that's ultimately the what I'm looking for. So, one of the reasons why
my mouthpieces are expensive. Yes, I admit it. I know the S there is because there's a lot of waste. You know, I go
through the expensive process of making a rubber rod and then I might realize, okay, I have to cut off half of the the
end because it's full of checks and voids and defective. Sometimes I make the mouthpiece, I don't even discover
that there was a void, a problem in that rubber until I actually made a mouthpiece. Go through the whole process
and I realize that mouthpiece has to go in the bin. But it's worth it because it
sounds better. How does what is the difference? Somebody might say, "Well, I sort of already expressed it. I'll I'll
try to do it more more succinctly. There are more partials, more overtones in the sound. There are highs, there are med
mediums, and there are lows that are just packed into the to the construct of the tonal uh the sound that are more so
than in modern rubber from Germany and where where have you. um those those
materials produce a dark quality of sound by their absence of upper partials. And
I think of a good dark sound as being one that has all of the partials, but it's just eqed such that it's a pleasing
balance. And that's what I think my rubber and my craft in combination can do. Typically, when somebody plays my
mouthpieces, they're like, "Wow, there's a lot of, you know, coming from whatever they've been on there. Wow, there's a
lot of sound. There's a lot more of that that stuff that gets me excited. Some people who are really interested in a
very dark sound, they play my mouthpiece and they think there's too many highs. You know, there I can't I don't know what to make of it and it's not for me.
But for the most part, I think people really welcome the combination uh the ad
addition of newfound harmonics in their sound. They
just have to learn how to, you know, make use of it in an artistic way and to
control it and and um navigate the the new worlds that can
be explored. And usually, I mean, it might take when somebody comes from a regular mouthpiece to one of my premium
mouthpieces, it might take a two-year exploration where where
uh until they've sort of fully figured it out. But I think it's usually a very pleasant one. They they don't complain
that it's a hard it's just a joyous new things are are discovered every week.
Okay, I've got a few things in my head. I want to get back to claret mouthpieces in a second. I still believe something
you told me isn't true and I I I want to I want to express it again and have you respond to it again because I'm going to
still believe it's true. And that is that uh like the old Meer mouthpieces
that everybody wants on the on the Alto that the rubber on those mouthpieces,
whatever fumes were coming out of the rubber when they made the blanks was toxic and it was killing people in that
in that volatile state. And that's why we cannot have those same blanks that they made the Myer mouthpieces out of in
the 50s. That's totally That's true. I think I don't think so. I know. I know you don't
think so. I I mean I think I think that that you know there's a great lore and legend. I mean I was led to believe back
when I was in college similar types of stories that the industry had to move to different I mean I think that ind
industries are there are more regulations. Right. Right. And so the the byproduct of a more regulator
regulatory world that certainly Germany where rubber modern rubber is typically sourced is one of you know it's part of
the EU. It's a highly regulated world that they live in. And Germany is one of the more regulated countries within. So
there's that. And you know America is far more regulated now than it was at the end of the 19th century. I mean,
wow, is it was it the Wild West back then and we're doing less destructive
things to our environment. But I don't think it's a it's a direct onetoone relationship that some guy in the
factory that was making the hard rubber that the Meer mouthpieces were made from
broke. So, you know, yeah, people can die around toxic things and a lot of the
stuff that we experience in life, they were toxic in their manufacturing
process, like that styrofoam cup you drink at the Fenway Park when you're enjoying a a hot beverage or or although
styrofoam is probably not not a good thing for us to be, you know, drinking out of because it's not good for the
environment, but so on and so forth. the glass windows that I'm looking out those
you know when they were making the glass you probably you know are standing
amongst materials that are not good for you. So but when it's finished it
becomes totally safe. Um, you know, like if if you've got an a retainer in
your mouth that's made out of plastic and that the material, you know, the
resin formula for the plastic in its precooked, prefinished state, you don't
want you don't want that in your mouth, but when it's, you know, it's in um so
uh I think that I might have taken your statement too literal. People die when
they're producing stuff all the time, but the enduser doesn't. Right. Right.
Well, that's how I understood it, right? That it was in that form. It was making people sick. Maybe not like immediately
sick, but like, you know, like it was doing something. Um, and can I just add,
I spoke with the rubber scientist at the lab that uh helped me ultimately
reproduce the old rubber from the mouthpiece that we reverse engineered.
And I asked him because, you know, these things were in my brain, too. And and I want to make sure I'm not killing my
customers. I I need them to be alive. I want them to keep coming back, right? And and so he said, "You'd have to drink
the prevulcanized material like milk if you wanted to get to kill you." Well, but but let me just say, I've never
heard anyone say, "When I talked to the rubber scientist, you're the first person I've ever heard utter those words
in that order." That's awesome. So, so G getting back to a couple minutes ago in
the conversation. I've taken in so much of your equipment in the past couple years. Like obviously, you know, we can
talk about the recases more, but these are life-changing. Absolutely the biggest difference maker I've ever
experienced in the in the clarinet equipment world. But then then when I changed to the
barrels, that was that both of these situations. I mean, this is different cuz it's not actively making the making
the sound. The barrel was like boom, better, done. No adjustment period, just like improvement done. The mouthpiece
I've been playing since we were in Ireland and I've been this the only mouthpiece I played since we were in Ireland. And immediate immediately I
like it better. Full stop. But I can grow into it more. like it I
feel like there's a way in which I'm still adjusting to playing it that it's
it's like a it's like a different curve in terms of how it what role is playing in my sound production. There was some
time when I was it was much harder for me to control my altismo notes like I
like they they came out easier which was a
problem because then the things I was doing previously just way too much right like like so there was some details in
my voicing and how I was playing that that I' I've I've come to have to learn how to play a little bit differently but
I would imagine here's the thing for me like so I've got to play a little bit differently I I think in this particular
situation, I've got to learn how to play a little bit better, right? Like I like what these sort of big things I was able
to do and sort of force out of a I I don't want to say what mouthpiece it was, but out of a different mouthpiece.
Now I don't have to do those things which I probably shouldn't have been doing in the first place. Right? So,
it's interesting for me when I look at my relationship to equipment, what it's
doing to my playing, what it requires of me as a player and how there's times
when the equipment is asking me to do something I shouldn't do or it's it's it's actually insisting that I play the
clarinet well and there's there's a huge benefit to playing it well that that all of a sudden opens up other things. And
you know, I I always talk with my students about how one component of our playing can't change without impacting
all sorts of other components of of our plane. And this mouthpiece has been interesting for me because I I've become
a better player in ways that are completely separate from the Alisimo thing. It wasn't like a a huge change,
but it was a it was a nuance change that also, you know, put my tongue in a place
that was more similar between slurring and tonging, right? It it created less
motion in my mouth, which is a great thing. It it opened up very
positive outcomes in situations that I maybe wouldn't have stumbled upon if I weren't playing that equipment. It's
it's interesting because I'm still like you were saying earlier, I'm still learning how to get stuff out of this
because there's so much stuff in it to get. A lot of it has to do with the the thin rails versus the thick rails that I
was playing on. I could push really hard on the thick rails in a way that
probably wasn't the best clarinet playing. It wasn't I I actually wouldn't say I
was playing the planet wrong or in a way that was inappropriate, but it allowed me to do something that had an impact on
everything else. And and removing that opens up different results from the same
actions or new actions get different results. It changes the game in a lot of different ways. And it's interesting to
see how that unfolds because it's it's not like it's just one thing. everything
starts to shift and it and it's very exciting because all of a sudden this equipment change can actually change how
you sound, right? Because what normally happens for me is I'll switch to a mouthpiece and then sound the same three
or four weeks later and then I'll sound ultimately the same a year later, exactly the same as if nothing's happened. My experience is a little bit
different in doing it, but I have all the same problems and the same challenges. And the thing that I found
is that I actually sound different. And like my concept, I've been able to
change my concept of sound. And again, we're not talking huge, but you know, in in small ways that are super meaningful
to me. I always use this as my mom wouldn't be able to tell the difference. She's lovely and and I love her, she
loves me, but she can't tell the difference between the mouthpieces because she doesn't play the clarinet.
But for those of us that play the clarinet, that change is really meaningful and really powerful. And I
really like playing the clarinet. I I like that's just a true statement, but I like playing the clarinet with this
mouthpiece and this this barrel. It's it's been a real eye opener to me. And I was thinking today as I was existing in
the world for a second that I can't believe I never play like there was there was a large port the
majority of my career I wasn't playing on this. It kind of made me mad. like like I wish that I had planned
on this a long time ago. And you know, obviously a lot of it didn't exist a
long time ago. So that that's your fault. But but in terms of of what it means to me to have this experience and
have it really sort of reignite some things and allow my ears to take me a different place than they than they went
before. It's it's all been very very exciting and uh it's frustrating to me that I didn't know you until about two
years ago. Well, I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to meet two years ago and
looking forward to the next two, 20 years, however many. And so, thanks for
sharing your observations. It means so much to me to hear that. And um yeah, I
mean, subtlety is the kind of world that we live in. So even if your mom might
not understand, but maybe because you're happier with what you're producing, it's
helping you explore a musical phrase in a way that is more, you know, fulfilling
and more from the heart. It's helping inspire you to to to weave an interesting, expressive note. And so
your mom might not be able to put it in words, but she might hear you and be more touched by what you're doing. It
may not have something to do with the tambber. I make a sound. Well, it's more than that. I'm making art. And you know,
the joke is, you know, if I put a different read on or or different barrel or different mouthpiece on, I'll ask my
colleague in in the orchestra, well, what do you think? And she'll say, well, it sounds like a clarinet, you know,
like to the little old lady in the audience, it's a clarinet is a clarinet. But to us, there's it's so much more.
And you know, ultimately I I I love the the relationship side of one the the
equipment. You know, if you can if you honestly are having a relationship with your equipment, you're going to be more
expressive, a better musician. And and I have a relationship with my reads and with my mouthpiece and my clarinet. I
mean, because it's so much part of me. The first half of my conversation with Brad Bane. I hope you enjoyed it. Please
keep a lookout for the second half of the conversation. While you're doing that, go ahead and leave a fivestar
rating and a review. Would you check out the clarinet ninja dojo? Look at all the things that I have that I'm excited to
put in the world and uh engage with you about the clarinet. Uh the clarinet is a wonderful thing. It brings people
together like it brought Brad and I together. And I've got a good friend who knows a lot about the clarinet and
making stuff and I feel very lucky. All right, we'll see you next time on the Planet
