Klarinet Archive - Posting 000087.txt from 1993/11

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Uncommon instruments (Re note of Anthony Taylor)
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 14:30:22 -0500

Tony, please check my original note. It said that I have two basset
horns, not basset clarinets. I tried to buy a pair of basset clarinets
for my 60th birthday, but no one would make one for me in B-flat, only in
A and I wanted to use the pair of them as my regular orchestral clarinets.

The basset horns and both of my bass clarinets are Selmer instruments.
pair of full Boehm clarinets with extensions to low written E-flat
and both can be made to play to low written D) and both are Selmer
instruments that I bought in Paris in the early 1960s. My E-flat clarinet
(which I don't play either very much or very well) is a full Boehm
Selmer, one of the only full Boehm E-flat clarinets ever made.

Your question about trying out instruments is confusing and puzzles me.
You say "If I were to try various basset clarinets today, for instance,
I wouldn't know how to judge its response and intonation except
against my regular clarinets."

You would judge them in the way you judge any instrument. What it is
by itself. Is it in tune? Do you like it? Can you get it cheap?
Why should one decide the quality of an instrument based on a contrast
with a similar one? The one you are considering is either good or bad,
worth playing or not worth playing, etc. It is those things in and
of itself, not by virtue of a contrast with something else. Trust
your judgement and that of your teacher, but trust yourself first. You
have to play the thing and what you like is what counts. If you can
find a $4.55 Chinese clarinet made out of old orange crates that you
like very much, then buy it. Would you not buy such a think because
it is not as expensive as your current clarinet? Would you reject it
simply because it was made out of old orange crates? If it plays well,
is in tune, gives satisfactory response, then to hell with everything
else.

(Just my opinion)

Dan Leeson, Los Altos, Ca
(leeson@-----.edu)