The alto clarinet is one of my favorite members of the clarinet family. It was the first size of clarinet I ever tried and I played one regularly throughout high school and college. Needless to say the alto clarinet has always had a special place in my heart, and because of this I’ve always wanted to built a mouthpiece that would help make this underappreciated instrument play as well as any other member of the clarinet family, if not better! After over a decade of trying every alto clarinet mouthpiece I could get my hands on (including one made by the legendary Frank Kaspar!) I’ve designed what I feel is the best alto clarinet mouthpiece on the market. This mouthpiece features a 1.37mm tip opening paired with a long facing. The facing was carefully designed to give excellent response and projection in all registers, no more should the alto clarinet be considered “stuffy” or “hard to play”. The real magic of this mouthpiece lies inside the chamber. I based this mouthpiece off of one of my favorite vintage blanks which has a very nice concave baffle paired with a “slight-A” throat. This combination gives a nice focused basset horn like tone without the “nasal” quality you sometimes get with alto clarinets. The chamber is also sized to provide good intonation with all major makes of alto clarinet. This mouthpiece works well with 2.5-3 Vandoren reeds depending on how hard of a reed you like. It will also work with most alto clarinet ligatures, my personal recommendation is the Rovner Dark 2RS for alto clarinet.
The alto clarinet is one of my favorite members of the clarinet family. It was the first size of clarinet I ever tried and I played one regularly throughout high school and college. Needless to say the alto clarinet has always had a special place in my heart, and because of this I’ve always wanted to built a mouthpiece that would help make this underappreciated instrument play as well as any other member of the clarinet family, if not better! After over a decade of trying every alto clarinet mouthpiece I could get my hands on (including one made by the legendary Frank Kaspar!) I’ve designed what I feel is the best alto clarinet mouthpiece on the market. This mouthpiece features a 1.37mm tip opening paired with a long facing. The facing was carefully designed to give excellent response and projection in all registers, no more should the alto clarinet be considered “stuffy” or “hard to play”. The real magic of this mouthpiece lies inside the chamber. I based this mouthpiece off of one of my favorite vintage blanks which has a very nice concave baffle paired with a “slight-A” throat. This combination gives a nice focused basset horn like tone without the “nasal” quality you sometimes get with alto clarinets. The chamber is also sized to provide good intonation with all major makes of alto clarinet. This mouthpiece works well with 2.5-3 Vandoren reeds depending on how hard of a reed you like. It will also work with most alto clarinet ligatures, my personal recommendation is the Rovner Dark 2RS for alto clarinet.
