Klarinet Archive - Posting 000834.txt from 1997/03

From: BKruse@-----.COM
Subj: kevlar underwear?
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 12:53:35 -0500

What's wrong with cotton underwear? Cotton is great stuff. In terms of
cost/benefits I don't believe there is any better material on earth for
underwear. However, for certain specialized activities like running
marathons, there are materials that will chafe less and wick moisture away
better than cotton. More importantly for this reed analogy, if I bought a
10-pack of underwear (Costco maybe?), there'd be more than one good pair in
the box and I wouldn't need to spend hours adjusting them all. Or maybe
Don is a lot pickier than I am :-)

So, back to the point. Even if cane is in general the best material for
the great unwashed masses (like me) in terms of cost/benefits, why is there
no premium material out there for the elite? I don't question the fact
that a good piece of cane will get you a good sound. I don't even want to
dispute the allure of the shakuhachi (one of my favorite voices on the WX11
BTW). But given the aggravation that cane causes us all, and the fact that
even the reed manufacturers are unable to produce consistent, predictable,
uniform products, it surprises me that there doesn't seem to be more
research going on to find alternatives. Especially in an age when new
materials are being developed for applications in so many other areas of
our lives.

Barry