Klarinet Archive - Posting 000744.txt from 1999/03

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] My clarinet's resistant
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 14:46:16 -0500

PSHIROM@-----.com wrote:

> Lately, my clarinet has started to play really resistently. I feel like
I'm
> working too hard to produce sound, but I'm not out of practice. I know
it's
> not my reeds, but the clarinet is 20-25 years old. Would the age of the
> clarinet have anything to do with it?

Only tangentially. My Bb and A are both over 30 (hard) years old and play
great. Stanley Hasty used (and uses) the same set of Buffets for 50+ years.

Of course, you need to maintain your horns. I'll bet a double tall latte
(or, if you're over 21, a penalty beer) that the resistance is caused by
nothing more than a leaky pad. This relates to the age of your clarinet
simply because older clarinets are more likely to have leaky pads than a new
one.

I played the Mozart Requiem twice on a borrowed basset horn last weekend.
While my friend Dan (who lent it to me) is a very nice guy, he's not picky
about the condition of his instruments--it leaked like a sieve. This led to
a couple of "inadvertent overtones" (squeaks, which sound as squawks on the
lower instrument) in rehearsal--embarrassing, to say the least. The real
problem was the resistance. After the gig, I felt that I had done 100
sit-ups, even though I never played particularly loud.

kjf

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org