Klarinet Archive - Posting 000167.txt from 1993/12

From: Jordan Selburn <jselburn@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: The wooden clarinet
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 13:04:33 -0500

Ronald P. Monsen writes:

>For what is it worth: When visiting the workshop of Herbert Wurlitzer
>20 years ago--he showed me some of his wood stockpile. He explained that
>it all came from a merchant located in Hamburg, Germany. The wood that he
>used for the bells of his clarinets--was of a different quality and type-
>as he explained it the making of the bell produced a great deal of
>"abfahle" (perhaps my German is wrong--WASTE) and he made the bells of
>lesser stuff.

One direction that we might see the manufacturers moving to (apologies for
the bad english - no caffeine yet) is that of composite instrments, that
is, where the clarinet is made of more than one material. A bell made of
<plastic, rubber, etc> would save much wood and probably have a minimal, if
any, effect on the sound. And this is already the case with mouthpieces,
of course. I've seen advertisements for oboes that have synthetic upper
and wood lower joints, although I suspect that this has to due with the
cracking problem endemic to the oboe. (Side question - what were
mouthpieces made of in the "olden days"? Wood? A couple of splinters would
certainly discourage the clarinetist from biting down!)

Jordan