Klarinet Archive - Posting 000007.txt from 1998/03

From: "Elliot Oki" <eoki@-----.org>
Subj: clarinet materials
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 05:10:17 -0500

I've just read the most interesting article in the March edition of
Scientific American on the controversy now surrounding the material used to
build woodwind instruments: wood, metal, etc.. In fact, the Buffet
Greenline was built so Boosey & Hawkes could use all of the Grendilla Tree.
The article goes on to argue that any material might be used to build a
clarinet and still sound the same, if the structure was exactly the same;
and that musicians have been unconvinced by scientists. Go ahead and read
it. Grenadilla is endangered, and they make a pretty convincing argument
that the sound differences between say wood and plastic stem only from the
shaping of the instrument. If this is true, people are spending a money
unnecessarily.