Klarinet Archive - Posting 000331.txt from 1994/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re Anthony Corman's suggestion about exercize
Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 21:07:02 -0400

Anthony Corman's suggestion to a question about exercize to change
a specific hand problem was, in my opinion, absolutely first class.
He suggests to the submitter a most important tool: change the clarinet,
not the player. Get extensions, levers, etc.

Rosario Mazzeo has a strange right hand thumb. I do not know if he has
trouble bending it or flexing it, but when he left the Boston Symphony,
I bought his basset horn. My first basset horn (which I still had at
the time I bought his) was giving me fits. I could not work the
thumb key successfully and all I ever did was to try exercizes to fix
the problem.

But when I got Rosario's b.h., I saw that he had modified the key to fit
his finger, not the other way round, which is what I had been trying to do.
Now as it happens, his modifications did not fit my hand, but at least he
gave me the idea that if he could change it to fit his hand, why not me?
And that is what I did and that is absolutely in concert with what
Anthony Corman suggested.

I never would have had the nerve to alter a clarinet had it not been for
Mazzeo suggesting it (implicitly) for I always presumed that whatever was
wrong, it was me that needed fixing.

Clark Fobes has made several physical changes to his b.c. to compensate
for physical problems. It is a wonderful idea, and I am very glad that
Corman brought it up. Thans Anthony, it was good of you to have
introduced this to the board, and it is something that needed to be
brought in for people who, like me, are too in awe of the clarinet to
consider modifying it to fit our bodies.

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