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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000049.txt from 2004/08

From: PhilFrei@-----.com
Subj: [DR-L] Re: Those awful Chinese instruments
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 14:15:30 -0400

Many may be too young to remember, but Japanese imports used to be junk and
the butt of many jokes. Now Yamaha makes oboes that are giving Loree a run for
their money. I figure, first you have to create working factories. Once that
is established, then you can start working on quality.

Maybe cheap instruments will make classical music more broadly accessible as
more people will be able to afford "first" instruments.

- Phil Freihofner

>Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 09:09:46 -0400
>To: doublereed@-----.org
>From: Jim Katz <jimkatz@-----.ca>
>Subject: Those awful Chinese instruments

>Whenever this topic comes up, the Chinese oboes and bassoons and the rest
>are roundly dumped on, which is fine as far as it goes. What we really need
>is someone who is in the right spot to contact the manufacturer and see if
>we can improve the situation. If the keywork is bad because they are using
>leftover noodle dough, they could perhaps benefit from a suggestion or two.
>The social issues would even improve as they sold more good instruments,
>could pay the workers more, etc. Let's face it, if they were making good
>knock-offs of Heckels and Lorees we would snap them up. Several old names
>and tooling in pianos have been bought up by Chinese manufacturers, and I'm
>told that they are making some good instruments; not professional concert
>machines, but good mid-level home and apartment pianos.

>Jim

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