I’ve recently joined the Behn Mouthpieces Artists team. I first became acquainted with Brad Behn’s mouthpieces at the 2013 ClarinetFest in Assisi. I had tried some of his pieces for clarinet, and found one that I really liked in his Signature Collection. It was quite open (something like 1.56 tip opening… typical “classical” mouthpieces are between 1.0-1.10 or so), which I like for klezmer, jazz, and a lot of contemporary music. It blew quite freely, and I had a lot of flexibility for bending notes, multiphonics, and slap tongues. It’s also loud as hell! But what especially caught my attention was how clean and centered the tone still was. Usually with larger tip openings the sound is quite fuzzy, but with this piece I had a clean and pure core sound, with a lot of “space” around it depending on the reed I chose. Which is also another amazing thing with this particular piece… I can use a range of reed strengths depending on what sort of response I want, and rather than harder reeds just becoming dull and too hard to blow, they still maintain that core in the sound and just respond differently. The downside of this mouthpiece was the price… it’s hefty, even for artisan mouthpieces. But it comes with a lifetime warranty. If anything ever needs to be changed or adjusted on it, Brad will do so for free. And hey, a good mouthpiece is worth the price.
Due to the price I wasn’t able to buy it in Assisi, but I had it in my mind for a whole year, until ClarinetFest 2014 in Baton Rouge. Behn Mouthpieces was present again, and still had the exact same mouthpiece. Brad even remembered me and said he kept it and brought it in case I was still interested. I wasn’t too surprised that nobody had bought it, as most clarinetists don’t usually look for something so open. But I took it as a sign. After a few more hours of testing, playing, and trying other ones, I kept coming back to the same one. So I bought it. After more than a year of playing on it, I still love it.
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Jump ahead to ClarinetFest 2015 in Madrid, where I was asked to play contrabass clarinet in Arthur Gottschalk’s piece The Kaleidoscopic Pocket Hockets Boogaloo for 8 bass clarinets and 2 contrabass clarinets in the D’Addario Artists concert. I had an old Selmer C* contra mouthpiece that did the job, but it wasn’t great. I only know of two custom contra mouthpieces, by Walter Grabner and Clark Fobes. I know both Walter and Clark, and they both make fantastic mouthpieces. In fact I have two clarinet and one bass clarinet Grabner mouthpieces, and my current Eb clarinet and bass clarinet mouthpieces are Fobes. But the problem with a contra mouthpieces is, they’re expensive! Especially for how relatively less I play contra than my other clarinets.
I had tried out Tim Bonenfonte‘s Grabner contra mouthpiece back in Assisi, and it played great, so I knew a good mouthpiece was possible. Every time I had seen Brad Behn at a ClarinetFest, he had his tools and was always working on mouthpieces, and adjusting them for his customers. So I emailed him to ask if he could reface my C* for me. He gladly accepted, and I went to him in Madrid when I had the chance, after our first rehearsal for the D’Addario concert. Tim was here again, and playing the other contra part in the concert, so I borrowed his Grabner and asked Brad to make my C* close to that. He got to work, and over the course of about 2 hours of going back and forth between him tweaking and me trying it out on both a Selmer Rosewood and Leblanc straight metal contra, he got it as close as he could to the template.
But then we went to the next level. I still felt I could get more from the horn if the mouthpiece would allow me, so with careful, tiny adjustments, he was able to open up the sound to an amazing degree. What I was really impressed with was how Brad could just listen to me play and tell exactly what adjustment needed to happen to make it better. Finally it got to the point where we didn’t think making any more adjustments would help anything, and boy was I happy with it! We got it so it was playing even better than the Grabner did for me.
The next day at rehearsal and also in the concert, the difference was heard! I got some comments from people about how great the contra was sounding, which is important in that piece. I was the one driving the whole ensemble! It blew so freely and easily, I could wail as loud as I wanted without it fighting back but also play pianissimo, and I had control over the whole range of the horn. Well, as much as horn would allow, but now I know any limitations are in the horn and not the mouthpiece!
At one point I did also get the chance to try out Oğuz Büyükberber and Laura Carmichael‘s Fobes contra mouthpiece. My newly Behn-refaced C* played similarly to this one, though I still prefer mine. Which leads me to conclude that I now have the BEST CONTRABASS CLARINET MOUTHPIECE IN THE WORLD!
In addition to the refacing, I also tried out some of the new Behn clarinet models. I’ve been going in the opposite direction from my other one, and looking at much more closed tips for when I need a more “classical” sound or when a wider tip opening doesn’t respond the way I need it to. He has some very nice new designs, and while I didn’t have enough time to decide on a new piece this year, I’m sure that next summer in Kansas I’ll walk away another one!
Design is one of the crucial elements to Behn mouthpieces, taking extreme care in the precision of every element of the mouthpiece, and even producing their own rubber. Brad has used some innovative ideas regarding the geometry of mouthpieces, and his new models even come without cork, but rather three rubber O-rings that can be easily changed! No more worrying about decaying cork, and if the mouthpiece is too loose or tight on your barrel, you can easily change the O-rings with thicker or thinner ones to suit!
So, for the production of great mouthpieces and being a top-notch person to work with, I am now a Behn Mouthpieces Artist!