Klarinet Archive - Posting 000214.txt from 1995/06

From: Marian Rutty <mrutty@-----.US>
Subj: Re: Old vs. New Clarinets
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 14:10:43 -0400

yes!!!! i have a clrinet that is 42 years old and is beautiful....but you
know my father always told me that it is the player not the horn!

Marian Rutty
Notre Dame High School
1400 Maple Avenue
Elmira NY 14904

On Sat, 10 Jun 1995, SCOTT MCCHESNEY wrote:

> Since we've all been discussing shopping for new Clarinets, I thought
> I'd throw this out into the wind and see what happens...
> Everybody has been saying "buy this Buffet, or this one, or buy this
> LeBlanc," etc. I have just been thinking about an incident I witnessed about
a
> year ago, maybe a bit longer:
>
> My Clarinet is an old Buffet (ca. 1950's) that was used by one of the
> local symphony players before my parents bought it back when I was a sophomore
> in high school. I was told at that time that this Clarinet was a real find,
> and if I ever sold it or didn't take care of it "my fingers would be chopped
> off" (my dad had a flair for the dramatic.)
> Anyway, we jet forward to last year. I was working in a music shop
> which had teaching studios downstairs. The wife of one of our "roadies" (the
> guys who went to call on the schools) taught Clarinet down in those studios,
> and she was going to get a new Clarinet. She went to the Buffet factory, and
> after careful selection and testing of Clarinets that came straight off the
> line, she chose one and bought it. About three weeks later, she asked me if
> she could play on mine - just to see what the difference was. I said OK.
> She played on it for about 30 minutes in her studio. I was upstairs
> working. When she came up to give it back to me, she asked me quite seriously
> if I was interested in selling it. She liked it better than the one she
bought
> straight from the factory. I told her that I was not interested, but thanks
> for the compliment. Since then, three other people have made a similar
comment
> about my instrument vs. theirs - and they all had Buffets that were newer than
> mine.
> This makes me wonder: was there really such a difference in the
> Clarinets of that time vs. the new ones? Or did I simply luck into a very
good
> Buffet? And if it really was "better back then", why would one want to buy a
> new one? I probably never will, unless this Clarinet suffers from the vague
> "blowout syndrome" or otherwise becomes incapacitated. Or is it simply that
> all the very good old Clarinets have owners who won't part with them?
> Any answers out in electron-land?
>
> -- Scott
>