Klarinet Archive - Posting 000038.txt from 1969/12

From: kurtheisig@-----.net
Subj: Re: [kl] Blow out some more!
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500

Yes indeed plastic clarinets get pretty gross and unusable and with the sam=
e kind of overhaul will play much better than new. I just did that with 2 B=
undys this month and am doing a plastic Evette (post 1983, they were awful =
before the Brits bought Buffet) right now.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Robert Howe <arehow@-----.net>
>Sent: Sep 23, 2007 2:59 PM
>To: Klarinet <klarinet@-----.org>
>Subject: [kl] Blow out some more!
>
>Some further (and may I hope final?) reflections on blown out clarinets an=
d
>oboes.
>
>If blow out is a tone hole crud phenomenon, it will occur equally in plast=
ic
>oboes and clarinets as in wooden specimens. I have never heard of such a
>thing as a blown out plastic oboe. Has anyone else?
>
>Dan Leeson asks for proof of blown out clarinets, no doubt looking for a
>lack of scientific data so that he can dismiss a colleague=C2=B9s observat=
ion as
>mere legend. But the writer who compared this to PMS=C2=8Bwhich I treat e=
very
>day=C2=8Bwas on the money; another example of a once derided sickness woul=
d be
>Lyme disease. Absence of proof is NOT proof of absence. What proof do yo=
u
>need, oh DNL, beyond one or two colleagues describing the phenomenon? Wha=
t
>experiment would you propose to test the theory that a clarinet can blow
>out? What experiment could be more valid than to throw a thousand or two
>thousand clarinets out into the world, have people play them, and then hav=
e
>those folks report their experiences=C2=8Bjust as Fred J has done? Has an=
y Blow
>Out Denier played Fred's clarinet?
>
>On reflection I can propose an explanation for the occurrence of blow out =
in
>oboes but not often in clarinets and bassoons. Replacing the top joint of=
a
>blown out oboe fixes the issue; thus it seems to be a top joint phenomenon=
.
>Oboes have a very pronounced conical bore, with a conicity of 2.5% or so.
>A bassoon=C2=B9s conicity is about half that and a clarinet=C2=B9s is esse=
ntially 0 in
>the upper joints. Thus in the top joint of an oboe the bore will constant=
ly
>be exposing new vascular bundles in the grain; the interior of an oboe is
>much more akin to end grain than to side grain. In a clarinet, essentiall=
y
>no new bundles will be exposed as one moves along the bore. In a bassoon,
>the very slow taper and wide bore will cause the exposure of fewer bundles
>per unit length than in an oboe; maple being less dense than grenadilla,
>even fewer bundles will be present to become exposed.
>
>Let us now consider that the opening of the bindle into the bore allows th=
e
>passage out of oils and the passage in of saliva, thus permitting the
>exposure of deeper wood to the acidity of the player=C2=B9s saliva. I hav=
e seen
>(in a rosewood oboe by Loree) tiny little deformations of the bore where
>each bundle opens. If any of these processes occur in an playing
>time-dependent fashion, then an oboe will assuredly be altered much more
>quickly than a clarinet or bassoon. When looking at a large population of
>instruments, even if this is a slow process it would be manifest as obois=
ts
>noting the phenomenon and clarinetists not.
>
>Good afternoon all,
>
>Robert Howe
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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