Klarinet Archive - Posting 000043.txt from 1998/09

From: Kenneth Wolman <kwolman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Children and Clarinet Playing
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 10:30:21 -0400

>Ed,
>Children and clarinets do not mix. Clarinets are DANGEROUS: sunlight
>reflecting off the keys can distract children and cause them to walk
>into heavy traffic, while the pointy-end of the mouthpiece could put
>someone's eye out!

And those metal marching band clarinets are the worst. The glare can blind
spectators, get into the eyes of passing drivers, and cause major highway
pileups.

I strongly recommend starting children out on a
>safer instrument, like the Fisher-Price Happy Farm, which makes really
>cool sounds, but is practically impossible to swallow. You can then
>switch the child over to clarinet when the child is no longer a child
>(40 - 50 years old).

I was surprised when I went into a music store in my work neighborhood and
saw that the nameless They are still manufacturing the Flute-o-phone, the
"instrument" that I learned to play when I was being given musical aptitude
tests in the 1st or 2nd grade, somewhere around 1951. Those and the
infamous Tonette. I don't remember what they sounded like.

It would not surprise me to find that Peter Schickele composed baroquey
music for these interesting starter instruments.

Ken

Kenneth Wolman Information Technology Morgan Stanley Inc.
750 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 212-762-1685
"From the Meadowlands": http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/1649
"The extent to which my four-legged kid controls my existence is relegated
to the status of `secret life' most of the time. The average American on
the street just cannot comprehend inter-species parent-child
relationships."--Anonymous

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