Klarinet Archive - Posting 000145.txt from 1994/11

From: Lorne G Buick - Music TA <lgbuick@-----.CA>
Subj: Re: Nat. schools, parts 1 and 2
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 17:32:14 -0500

Dan (and everybody), it seems to me your message below supports my thesis
better than anything I wrote myself.

On Thu, 3 Nov 1994, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:
>
> But one point it worth noting now. Lorne pointed out that German trade ads
> for clarinet players would often say "No Boehm Players" or something to
> that affect. But if the Germans were advertising for police, or waiters,
> or firemen, or even wine tasters, the same admonition would apply. There
> is a significant cultural gap between the French and the Germans that they
> have avoided each other's cultural benefits for centuries.
>
Doesn't this suggest that the clarinet players would go out of their way
not to sound like each other?

> It has long been suggested that a great mistake was made placing the Germans
> on one side of the Rhine and the French on the other, since no two cultures
> are as incompatible as those two. My wife and I often spend time in and
> around Strassbourg, the heart of French Alsace and the gateway to Baden in
> Western Germany. Despite the fact that everyone there speaks both French
> and German, the cultural disassimilation is obvious and impacts much of
> their daily lives.
>
> So I wouldn't take "No Boehm Players" too seriously. It has as much logic
> as "No foreign workers" which is a current theme in German politics. Germany
> is just a very nationalistic country. They believe that they do things the
> best way (and maybe they do).

... and they believe the French do everything wrong, so they deliberately
do things differently (like making their clarinets, mouthpieces, and reeds
in such a way that they can't possibly sound like French ones....)

I thank you for your kind remarks (which I have deleted to avoid redundancy)