Klarinet Archive - Posting 000397.txt from 1994/05

From: "Jay Heiser, Product Manager, Govt Systems" <jayh@-----.COM>
Subj: re;String instruments are eternal (TV Tonight)
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 14:32:32 -0400

If you're interested in the subject of 'violin aging' you might
want to catch the season finale of "Northern Exposure" tonight.

-->From sco.sco.com!vtbit.cc.vt.edu!vccscent.bitnet!klarinet Mon May 23 12:18:28
1994
-->Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 09:08:25 -0700
-->Reply-To: leeson@-----.edu
-->Sender: Klarinet - Clarinettist's Network
<KLARINET%VCCSCENT.BITNET@-----.EDU>
-->From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
-->Subject: String instruments are eternal
-->Comments: To: klarinet%vccscent@-----.edu
-->To: Multiple recipients of list KLARINET
<KLARINET%VCCSCENT.BITNET@-----.EDU>
-->Message-ID: <9405230915.aa05996@-----.COM>
-->
-->Jay Heiser always writes very interesting and intellectually provocative
-->notes. In his most recent, he suggests that string instruments are
-->forever while woodwinds deteriorate.
-->
-->In a performance I did at the Library of Congress years ago, I was examining
-->the five strads in the locked case of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall
collection.
-->And my host made a most interesting comment to me about those instruments
-->(and others that are so kept from use though they are taken out once a year
-->and a concert is played on them). He said that string instruments, after
-->years and years and years of playing cause the wood to lose its ability to
-->vibrate and they die (or else cease to be useful for professional purposes).
-->He suggested that only those instruments that are so protected (such as the
-->ones at which we were looking and other like them) will be able to show the
-->world what a Strad sounded like in 3 or 4 hundred years.
-->
-->I do not know if this is true. I simply add it to the hopper of discussion
-->about instruments and the length of their lives.
-->
-->
-->
-->====================================
-->Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
-->(leeson@-----.edu)
-->====================================
======================================
Garden Status:
Peas are just beginning to flower (seems late)
Lots of spinach and lettuce to harvest
Tomatoes have started to set fruit (ahead of peas)