Bad news

saxymanzach said:

My god, those prices went way up!!!! The prices are getting ridiculous. Who besides some of the wealthy hobbyists can afford a quality mouthpiece anymore?

Click to expand...

Don't equate price with "quality"! I've seen enough high-priced "boutique" mpcs to know that, in most cases, the attribution or presumption of "quality" associated with absurdly high prices is usually misplaced. Despite all the "hype" you'd be very hard pressed to name a half-dozen real "A-list" professionals who consistently use "boutique" mpcs of any brand.

It's worth remembering - or knowing - that the Guardala mpcs that started this whole "boutique mpc" thing were originally designed and made as prosthetic devices to assist Mike Brecker to compensate for an irreparable physical handicap. Brecker's use of these products combined with his incomparable technical proficiency - and Guardala's relentless exploitation of both - is what created this market. Do you want or need to use a prosthesis designed for someone else? A crutch or orthopedic shoe, perhaps?

It's OK to buy mpcs - or other equipment - that compensate for some deficiency in your own inputs or that emphasize some particular tonal aspect you want to produce but each player needs to learn for himself what is actually required to obtain such results rather than depending on the flood of advertising "hype" and/or "endorsements" - or succumbing to the idea that "price=quality".

Remember that "advertising adjectives" ALWAYS add price to an object but never add VALUE! This is especially important to remember for most of the community of players populating this forum. Given the realities of the "music business", with very few exceptions, most of us are actually playing rather infrequently as a passionate (and non-self-supporting) hobby in obscure venues to inattentive audiences. Our ability as players is far more important than the ability to pay prices some are willing to pay for whatever benefit is ascribed to over-priced "boutique" mpcs. It's my long experience such mpcs are primarily bought to impress or reassure the purchaser themselves (and others of comparable gullibility) that they're a "really serious player". Affluent hobbyists with overpriced equipment are usually easy to spot on the bandstand; they "pose" well and almost invariably play poorly.

I've been around the scene long enough to remember some of the non-descript equipment used by players who are now "Jazz Icons" the younger players would (and will) die trying to emulate. To quote an observation made to me many years ago by Gene Ammons, "It ain't the equipment you're blowin' on that counts, it's what you're blowing on the equipment".

What's important to YOU?