| Brought to you this hour by |  | Advertising and Web Hosting on Woodwind.Org! |
Klarinet Archive - Posting 000071.txt from 1997/02
From: CLARK FOBES <reedman@-----.COM>
Subj: Plastic clarinets and matched pairs
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 16:18:23 -0500
---- Begin Forwarded Message
I have to jump into the fray re: Plastic clarinets for the moment.
I strongly disagree with David Blumberg that students should start out
on wood clarinets and here is the reason. Basically any wood clarinet
that is not a professional grade instrument is not worth the money. I
have been repairing clarinets for over 20 years and the only
non-professional wood instrument that I could ever recommend was the
Noblet 41. This instrument is no longer made. It is absolutley nonsense
to think that a plastic clarinet cannot compete with a student grade
wood instrument. Point in fact is the Buffet student model clarinet. My
son (9 years old) just started clarinet and I purchased a Buffet
plastic clarinet and was EXTREMELY impressed with the mechanism, sound
and intonation. Purchasing a step up wood instrument makes no sense at
all when there are so many good used professional grade instruments
available. I would much rather see a student purchase a 20 year old
Buffet in good shape for $1,000 than to pick up a new step up wood
instrument for $900. Good pro instruments will always have a good
resale value and they are inherently better instuments. Also, I have
seen many, many no name or off name wood clarinets that students have
purchased just because they are wood when they were better off just
staying with a well made plastic clarinet. I would be willing to bet
that a good player with a good mouthpiece on a Buffet plastic clarinet
at a distance of a few feet would sound just fine in an orchestra. It's
design that makes the basic sound, not material.
On matched pairs.
There did exist at one time such a thing as a matched pair of
clarinets. I have worked on two such pairs. One was a very unusual pair
of Silver Haynes Clarinets. Each had the same serial number. They now
reside at the Library of Congress. These two instuments were
remarkable, not only for their tone, but for a truly matched resonance
and similarity of tuning. I have also worked on an old pair of Leblanc
clarinets (A & Bb) with the same serial # and were also sold as a
matched pair. Perhaps in the days when instruments were individually
hand crafted it may have been possible to insure that two instruments
were made of the same branch (although this seems highly unlikely to me
and really unnecessary). I think that the "matching" was done by the
maker as he worked on the two instruments jointly. The only possibility
of obtaining such a pair of clarinets now would be to contact Luis
Rossi or Peter Eaton.
However, matching clarinets is very important and fortunately we do
have some ways of doing this today.
First, I would recommend that the performer purchase A and Bb
clarinets from the same maker. I would also recommend buying the same
model and if possible purchase them within the same year of
manufacture. Having instruments of the same brand and model keeps
intonation patterns somewhat similar.
The greatest difficulty in matching Buffet clarinets is the
sometimes drastic differences in resistance between A and Bb clarinets.
Generally Buffet R-13 A clarinets tend to be much more resistant than
the Bb's. Some of this difference will be mitigated by purchasing
instruments at the same time so that at least initial resistances can
be similar. Generally, the Buffet A clarinets can be improved with a
reverse cone tapered barrel. Usually several tones on the A clarinets
can be fraised to help with sound emission. ( I do think that Buffet
needs to put serious attention into improving the R-13 A model
clarinets. Tuning is deficient and there seems to be radical
differences from clarinet to clarinet which I do not find in such a
great percentage on the Bb clarinets)
Clark W Fobes
