I plan to spend some time on clarinet mouthpieces. The clarinetist I have contact with say that they want the mouthpieces to be a little darker. Then I think: lower baffle (if possible?) a gentle curve near the tip, slightly larger opening, thicker tip. Other things?

Check out the Youtube videos by Tom Ridenour.  He has about 100 of them.  
Several talk about what to change to make the tone darker.  Besides the baffle, 
there is sidewall shape, window width and back bore.  But these effect 
intonation too so you may need to compensate with a shorter barrel.  He also 
claims that a crystal mouthpiece sounds darker.  I'm not so sure.

http://www.youtube.com/user/billyboy647#g/u




________________________________
From: EgilF. <egfurre@...>
To: MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, July 7, 2011 3:26:01 PM
Subject: [MouthpieceWork] How to make clarinet mouthpieces darker

  
I plan to spend some time on clarinet mouthpieces. The clarinetist I have 
contact with say that they want the mouthpieces to be a little darker. Then I 
think: lower baffle (if possible?) a gentle curve near the tip, slightly larger 
opening, thicker tip. Other things?

I experimented last year a lot with clarinet mouthpieces. Lowering the baffle in a clarinet mouthpiece is almost impossible, you can do it but a clarinet has almost no baffle at all, there is not so much room for darkening. what you need to do is to change the internal slope. This unfortunately will affect the external slope as well making it more difficult to play... there is not much to do with a clarinet mouthpiece... many of them are unresponsive (?) which is so bad. Sometime people think unresponsive clarinet mouthpieces are darker but they simply don't play as they should. I like easy to play mouthpieces but it is just my idea of playing. A mouthpiece should help the player. If they want a darker mouthpiece just recommend harder reeds and darker ligs. 
My two cents,

Dan

--- In MouthpieceWork@...m, Keith Bradbury <kwbradbury@...> wrote:
>
> 
> Check out the Youtube videos by Tom Ridenour.  He has about 100 of them.  
> Several talk about what to change to make the tone darker.  Besides the baffle, 
> there is sidewall shape, window width and back bore.  But these effect 
> intonation too so you may need to compensate with a shorter barrel.  He also 
> claims that a crystal mouthpiece sounds darker.  I'm not so sure.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/user/billyboy647#g/u
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: EgilF. <egfurre@...>
> To: MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thu, July 7, 2011 3:26:01 PM
> Subject: [MouthpieceWork] How to make clarinet mouthpieces darker
> 
>   
> I plan to spend some time on clarinet mouthpieces. The clarinetist I have 
> contact with say that they want the mouthpieces to be a little darker. Then I 
> think: lower baffle (if possible?) a gentle curve near the tip, slightly larger 
> opening, thicker tip. Other things?
>