Klarinet Archive - Posting 000717.txt from 1996/08

From: Nick Shackleton <njs5%cam.ac.uk@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Re: Greg van Cott's questions about R13 shopping
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 20:19:53 -0400

Well, Dan is ready for another fight!
Yes Dan. Give Stoltzman any clarinet you can find and 90% of the readers of
this message will say "I recognized Stoltzman's tone at once". But I believe
they'd be largely deceiving themselves by confusing style with tone. And the
other side of it is that if we hand my clarinet and yours to a good player
and ask her/him to play them, I'm sure that you and I will both be able to
identify which is which.
Now when you're comparing two R13's it is not so extreme and you'll have to
be very careful to use the same mouthpiece, not to move the reed and so on
to make a good comparison. The differences may be subtle. It may be that you
reject one for poor tone because just one note has a worse tone. This could
be for all sorts of reasons (not because it's made of papyrus or tofu, but
just because there is a rough edge on one tonehole, for instance) but still
it is the case that you are judging the tone.
Of course Dan is right that you don't go and buy the tone, but it is stupid
not to give yourself the best chance. Even if nobody but you hears the
difference, you'll play better if you hear a better sound. Nick