Klarinet Archive - Posting 000232.txt from 1998/03
From: Mitch Bassman <mbassman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: Scientific American Article
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 16:49:35 -0500
About six and a half hours ago, Francois Kloc of Boosey & Hawkes Musical
Instruments, Inc., posted a message to this KLARINET mailing list to "clear
up a few misconceptions and inaccuracies" and to "respond" to a statement
in the cited article.
I realize that Mr. Kloc's response may have been to the copy of the article
that was posted as text by another KLARINET member a couple of days ago;
however, inasmuch as I am the person who, on February 20, first brought
this article to the attention of this mailing list after having seen (on
the FLUTE list) a reference to the URL
(http://www.sciam.com/1998/0398issue/0398scicit3.html) of the article in
the on-line edition of _Scientific American_, I thought that sending a
courtesy copy of the B&H response to the author of the article was in order.
Some of you may recall my mentioning that the article's author is flutist
and writer Karla Harby (who, as a writer, undoubtedly noticed that I
uncharacteristically managed to make the entire preceding paragraph into a
single sentence). Through the magic of the Internet, Karla learned of my
post and contacted me. Having her e-mail address on file, I decided to
forward Mr. Kloc's post to her for a possible rebuttal. (We klarinetists
love debate, n'est-ce pas?)
Enough prologue! Let's get to the author's response. (Note that she is not
subscribed to this mailing list. She won't see any follow-up unless her
address is explicitly included.)
Mitch Bassman
Burke, Virginia, USA
mbassman@-----.com
========== Karla Harby's response: ==========
Dear Mitch,
Thanks so much. Feel free to post the following, if you like.
The article doesn't specify exactly where clarinets are manufactured
because it's not important to the story. The public relations department
of that company bounced me from office to office to office before I was
fortunate enough to speak with Mr. Kloc. One reason for giving a
city at all is so any interested readers can track down the company to
buy a clarinet, without going through the magazine first. This purpose is
served by the city given.
My editor decided to call Mr. Kloc a "master craftsman" even though that
is not his official title. He is an expert on making clarinets, however,
and I agreed that this would convey this significant expertise to the
readers. So, we are guilty of suggesting that this is a formal title when
it is not, but we also intended it as a compliment. "Woodwind Product
Specialist"
doesn't do justice, we felt, to his considerable technical expertise.
Regarding his other statements, I absolutely stand by what is written.
I quoted what Mr. Kloc told me. He may have been misinformed or he may have
misspoken -- we all do that at times, of course, and I do try to help my
sources whenever I think this might be happening -- but I repeated
exactly what he told me, which is all I can do in that situation.
I did and do regret that I do not know how to speak French! I realize that
Mr. Kloc was working in a language that is still very new to him. But,
he was the person the public relations people directed me to speak to.
All both of us could do was make the best of it, and I must say
Mr. Kloc was wonderfully helpful and delightful to me. (And if you're
reading this, Mr. Kloc, thank you again!)
All that said, I hope you will allow me to emphasize the real issue
of the article:
Using endangered tropical woods, whether it be for
coffee tables, clarinets, oboes or flutes, contributes to the demand for
these scarce woods and the destruction of the rain forest, an ecosystem
that is rich with species and crucial to life as we know it on Earth.
Most of us would be horrified to buy a piano with keys made from the tusks
of slaughtered African elephants, yet some of us will gladly buy new wind
instruments made of rainforest woods. Is there really so much difference?
Cheers,
--Karla.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karla Harby, Writer
11 Vernon Avenue, Rockville Centre,
Long Island, New York 11570-5521, USA
Tel. (516) 764 8132; Fax (516) 763 1021 (24 hours)
kharby@-----.com
<http://nasw.org/users/kharby/>
