Guillaume Chanfreau

California
I got the 2 mouthpieces (Selmer Concept & Vandoren SL3)  in the mail today and I tried them right away. First, I now perfectly understand what you meant by the Selmer Concept being much brighter than the Vandoren. I didn’t realize this before your work but the rebalancing really revealed these features. In general the playing is way easier than it was before the rebalancing and requires much less effort.  Great news is that your work got rid of the octave jump issue that I had with the low G for both pieces. The lower notes (Bb to C#) also pop out much more easily with both mouthpieces, and with much less annoying vibrations – much more pleasant for the teeth. One of the coolest thing is that I can now play with dynamics. Before the job I felt that I was stuck at a specific volume and could not really bring out the full range from pp to ff. I don’t understand how this works, but your work on the pieces allowed me to fully explore the dynamic range. That’s amazing! Also the Marca reed you sent is really great. I thought you made a mistake in sending a 3.5 because I usually work with 2.5 and 3 and I thought I wouldn’t be able to use it because it would be too hard…but it actually works perfectly and it is superior to the other reeds I had in rotation. To be completely honest, the only issue that remains is that I still can’t hit the high E and high F/F# consistently. I think it’s probably because of me and being a relatively newbie with the soprano…just need more practice I guess. Thanks for a wonderful job – it was money well spent and I can’t wait to see what you will do with the tenor pieces!