Klarinet Archive - Posting 000640.txt from 1998/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] A new concept in orchestral clarinets
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 18:37:04 -0400

When I turned 60, a while back, and was still playing, I decided to
buy myself a new pair of orchestral instruments with which to play
for a few more years before I retired. I didn't need new instruments,
I just wanted to try an experiment, and that experiment was to have
a set of basset clarinets as my regular orchestral instrumentsm both
B-flat, A, and if possible, C. Just like Stadler had.

I couldn't get them.

While all of the big three would sell me a basset clarinet in
A, none would even consider making one in B-flat. At a convention
in Chicago, I had representatives of the manufacturers greet my
request with statements such as "You don't need a B-flat basset
clarinet because there is no music for the instrument." Foolish,
ignorant people. And as for one in C, forget it.

I could probably have gotten a set from Wurlitzer in a Boehm system
but the mouthpiece and bore sizes were not something that I was
prepared to accomodate myself to at that stage of my life.

Now I see that the big three are (or appear to be) unhappy about
the sales of the basset clarinets in A and all I have to say is
that in making only one in A, they were their own worst enemies.
They could have mounted a gangbusters marketing program suggesting
that every player in the US consider making a revolutionary change
to their instrument types, and while they would not have soled
them to every orchestral player, they would have made a very good
inroad into the market. They could have made a pair of basset
clarinets into the sizzle on the steak!!

I think that what the manufacturers have no sense of is how to
exploit the market for musical instruments. They are generally
good technicians, good mechanics, and good players, but they
have no marketing imagination. They are allowing a first class
opportunity to slip away from them (i.e., the potential
replacement of every B-flat and A instrument in the U.S. and
elsewhere with basset clarinets) because they have no vision.

And the main failure of their vision is that they do not see
the creation of a marketplace from nothingness as a business
opportunity. They remind me of how the American automobile
manufacturers behaved when the Japanese began to eat their
lunch beginning 20-25 years ago. The Japanese had marketing
vision, and the Americans had none. They believe that their
products were immortal and that no one would ever make an
inroad into their well-defined territory. So with that attitude
they did not have to have vision, only the same old, same old
every year, with lots of advertisement telling the buying
public how great the new model was over the old model.

No vision. No vision at all.

=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
=======================================

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