Klarinet Archive - Posting 000537.txt from 1997/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: Sounds of different Clarinets
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 11:56:51 -0400

> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.17
> Subj: RE: Sounds of different Clarinets

> In the spirit of full disclosure -
>
> Dan and Roger - do either of you own/play on both brands of Clarinets (Buffet
> or Leblanc, or more than one brand) that we have been discussing?

Well, I no longer play, though I still have a set of Selmer clarinets.
But when I was playing professionally I had a set of Buffets. I never
owned a LeBlanc though I tried their basset clarinet for a very long
time but decided not to buy it. The dealer was very kind to let me try
it for a month. I also played on a LeBlanc bass for some time.
Wonderful instrument. I played both the opus and the concerto and
found them excellent instruments though I never owned either one.

AS for the current product offerings of LeBlanc, I devoted a very long
piece on the matter of the language used in their offerings about
2 years ago. The marketing department wrote it. It contained
bits and pieces of text about something like 24 clarinets. And every
instrument had a characteristic sound. This one was a "mature sound"
and that one was a "more youthful sound" and another was a dark sound,
while a fourth had a jazzy sound. I must dig that out and repost it.

It was a marvellous example of a marketing department gone mad.

Oh yes. I played on a LeBlanc basset horn for a short while and found
the key arrangement superior to either the Buffet or the Selmer, but
I felt that the sound character of the larger bore (and alto clarinet
mouthpiece) was not to my personal preference. I don't say bad or
wrong, only not to my personal preference.

I feel confident that their current product offerings are excellent
and any player would be priveleged to own such a well-engineered
instrument. It is rather that any such player should not expect
it to sound differently from the instrument on which s/he is
currently playing even if that current instrument is a Bundy
resonite.

I say this under the belief that the sound produced by any player
is more dependent on things that occur from the lips backwards
than from the lips forward.

Thanks for asking.

>
> Or
>
> Have either of you played through the current product offerings from both
> vendors?
>
> Jerry Korten
> NYC
>
=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
=======================================