Klarinet Archive - Posting 000167.txt from 1996/03
From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: J. Roger Cole asks about up-tightedness
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 14:06:00 -0500
First, I always have problems with people whose first name is an
initial. Do I call you J? Do I call you Roger? Name your poison.
I think you may have misinterpreted a number of statements about
certain equipment issues. Everyone on this list agrees that
equipment is among the most important things about which we need
to know. I suspect there to be no disagreement with respect to
that issue.
The problem lies in the fact that it is repetitive. I joined this list
in 1993 and many were on it even before I became a member. Since that
time, there have to have been a dozen topics addressed over and over
to the point where the returns for some of us are diminishing.
That does not mean that they should NOT be discussed or that it is
inappropriate to post on a topic many times. Not at all. It is, rather,
that one of the intents of the list's originators in keeping history
files about everything that has been said on this list since day one,
was that newcomers could read about the topics on which a great deal
of dialogue has already occurred.
There have to be 1000 postings on Van Doren mouthpieces, for example. Yet
in the last month, another 25, addressing the same questions have arisen.
This takes up band width, costs money for those people who are not on
a free account, and rehashes things that have been beaten to death.
I can well understand a person reviewing all the history files on Van Doren
mouthpieces and then having some additional questions. But that is not
what is happening. Instead, someone says "I want to buy a Vandoren XXX
mouthpiece. Is it good?" And over the last 3 years there must be 500
postings on the Vandoren XXX mouthpiece that say it's terrific or lousy
or expensive or something.
As a result of all of this, some of the long term users of this list
(and we are not in any position of advantage simply because of that)
sometimes get a little testy when the same question about the Vandoren
XXX mouthpiece comes up for the 357th time.
And the matter is not academic. Some very good people are leaving this
list because a great deal of the dialogue is repetitive. They need
new challenges and sometimes those challenges do not come from this list.
We also need young blood, too. And they are going to want to know about
the Vandoren XXX mouthpiece, and the YYY reed company, and those questions
are going to come up on this list. There is nothing that we can do about
it. But understand that it will cause an occasional bark. That doesn't
mean that the topics are unworthy of discussion, only that they have been
discussed so many times that the party asking the question is doing himself/
herself a disservice by not having done an examination of what's in the
history files.
I know that it is easier to simply ask the question to the list than to
do the research necessary to get some really terrific discussions, but
occasionally that attitude will result in a bark or two. It is to be
expected, just as the asking of the question without having looked in the
files is to be expected.
And one can tell right off the bat when a newcomer has not read the
history files; i.e., for the last 3 years a perrenial topic has been
the relationship between the instrument/mouthpiece/reed/body type, etc.
and the character of the sound produced. 10 minutes of research would
show the most disinterested newcomer that phrases like "The sound of
the Buffet is better [worse/not as dark/just as bright/etc.] as the
sound of the Leblanc" has been analyzed to the point that those who
now say it get a thumb in the eye. We have all learned to be senstive
to the vocabulary we use when talking about the clarinet.
In effect, it is now part of a clarinetist's education to read what has
been said here over the last three years. It is important to know how
people feel about a number of critical topics, and it is foolish to
think that the most common ones (the Vandoren XXX mouthpiece, for example)
has not been part of that discussion thus far.
I don't think that this note will do anything, but I thought you should
be aware of why there appears to be a hesitancy when it comes to certain
topics. But nothing is not discussable here. Once we even spoke of
castrati and whether or not a castrated man could get an erection and
impregnate a woman. So the conversations are catholic, to be sure.
====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================
