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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000031.txt from 2003/07

From: Jim Katz <jimkatz@-----.ca>
Subj: [DR-L] Re: Music on the 4th--patriotic instruments?
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 20:09:25 -0400

I really like the idea of colored plastic, or any material, instruments.
The fact is that you can get pretty good music out of most materials, and
certainly Yamaha and other recorder-makers have shown that a plastic
recorder can work well. If brightly colored or decorated instruments will
get kids playing more, go get 'em!

I've always thought the 18th century artistically decorated instruments are
wonderful anyhow. I have a tenor recorder nicely painted with vines and
leaves, and am trying to talk my artist wife into similarly enhancing the
bassoon!

On the issue of Chinese instruments. It seems like China is in the same
spot as Japan was 30-50 years ago, producing lots of low quality stuff. The
marketplace and the entrepreneurs will pull up the quality soon enough.