Mouthpiece Lending Library

[ghmerrill]

I think this is a wonderful idea and service to the euph/tuba/whatever-playing community. I'm not so concerned about the sterilization issue since I would do that myself and regard it as my responsibility. I've been doing that "forever," and certainly well before any pandemic issues.

But -- and not to be a downer -- I'm skeptical about such a program's overall and long term success. Unless some sort of enforceable "guards" are put in place, I fear that the collection would (likely over a few short years) decline and disappear as people simply fail to return the "borrowed" mouthpieces for one of a variety of reasons. During my time as a professor I loaned several books (often quite expensive) out to undergraduates who simply never returned them, graduated and moved on. The "try it before you buy" it companies who support that approach for mouthpieces manage to avoid this by getting your credit card info, and then billing you for an unreturned item. But implementing that as part of such an informal "lending library," would turn it into more of a "business" that would have to be carefully administered as one. Doug Elliott does something similar with his mouthpiece trials/sales.

I don't have a proposed solution to this, but it is probably the major stumbling block for creating and maintaining such a program -- which would be groundbreaking and a huge benefit, if it could be made to work.

[cpoet89]

Great idea, but yes, accountability would definitely be a concern. How long do you keep the mouthpiece for? When do you return it? How do you enforce people actually returning mouthpieces?

Maybe some type of refundable deposit would be a solution? Maybe $50 (or more?). Once you pay the deposit, your mouthpiece loaner gets sent out for you to try and when you return it, you get $45 returned to you. The extra $5 is your "handling fee."

[miketeachesclass]

This is my concern as well - I haven't quite figured it out yet, but I'm working on it.

I think this is a wonderful idea and service to the euph/tuba/whatever-playing community. I'm not so concerned about the sterilization issue since I would do that myself and regard it as my responsibility. I've been doing that "forever," and certainly well before any pandemic issues.

But -- and not to be a downer -- I'm skeptical about such a program's overall and long term success. Unless some sort of enforceable "guards" are put in place, I fear that the collection would (likely over a few short years) decline and disappear as people simply fail to return the "borrowed" mouthpieces for one of a variety of reasons. During my time as a professor I loaned several books (often quite expensive) out to undergraduates who simply never returned them, graduated and moved on. The "try it before you buy" it companies who support that approach for mouthpieces manage to avoid this by getting your credit card info, and then billing you for an unreturned item. But implementing that as part of such an informal "lending library," would turn it into more of a "business" that would have to be carefully administered as one. Doug Elliott does something similar with his mouthpiece trials/sales.

I don't have a proposed solution to this, but it is probably the major stumbling block for creating and maintaining such a program -- which would be groundbreaking and a huge benefit, if it could be made to work.

[ghmerrill]

Well, on reflection, there may in fact be a business opportunity here for you if you wanted to go in that direction. There are several approaches one might consider: per trial fee, subscription fee, etc. You're going to have to deal with shipping anyway, and avoiding the cost of that for yourself. And packaging costs. And -- let's be honest -- some compensation for your time. I do suspect that there may be a viable small business model here -- and that in fact that might be the only realistic way to make it work.

[cpoet89]

A subscription fee would probably be the easiest. A person pays maybe $10-20 for XX amount of time, and gets to demo as many mouthpieces as they want during that period. The issue I see with this model is again, there is no real incentive to return the mouthpieces. Subscriptions fees need to be low enough that it makes sense for the consumer. If it's too high, there isn't much benefit over buying the mouthpiece yourself.

This is why I think the deposit system would work better. My tennis pro shop employs a similar system to demo tennis rackets. You can set a much higher dollar amount for the consumer because as long as they actually return the mouthpiece, they will get it back. The higher dollar amount also ensures that you are getting people who are serious about the program. And by keeping a small percentage of the deposit, you cover your shipping/handling costs.

[ghmerrill]

This is why I think the deposit system would work better.

I agree. There is also a very closely related model of this that has worked well for a number of years: Doug Elliott Mouthpieces.

[miketeachesclass]

I still haven't figured out logistics, but this is the list so far:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...usp=drive_link

[davewerden]

I still haven't figured out logistics, but this is the list so far:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...usp=drive_link

Holy cow! That's an amazing list!

[guidocorona]

Hi Mike, your mega-list is totally amazing!

BTW, I just sent you a PM and an email

Best, Guido