Klarinet Archive - Posting 000748.txt from 1999/05

From: Fred Jacobowitz <fredj@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] re: blow out
Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 11:47:15 -0400

To All And Sundry:
YES, BLOWOUT EXISTS. IT HAPPENED TO MY CLARINET!!!!!!!!!

The symptoms are: 1) A brightening of tone to the point of being shrill.
2) The troat tones going radically sharper, along with
all the other notes also going somewhat sharper. (at first I thought I
could fix it with a longer barrel but that didn't help the throat tones
much).
Wanna hear the difference? Come and hear it compared to my
pressent clarinet (they are both R-13's.
If it were just me I would think that, alright, I am either nuts
(yeah, yeah, I know - I **AM** nuts) or that it was a fluke. However, too
many other players, like Stanley Drucker (who replaces his horns every ten
years to prevent being saddled with a blown out horn) have also
experienced it.
As has been said, don't disbelieve something just because you
haven't experienced it.

Fred Jacobowitz
Clarinet/Sax Instructor, Peabody Preparatory

On Fri, 14 May 1999, Edwin V. Lacy wrote:

> On Fri, 14 May 1999, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:
>
> > I have an opinion too. Blow out is a phenomenon suggested to exist by
> > musical instrument manufacturers for the purpose of selling
> > instruments; i.e., it is a sales tool which has come to be accepted by
> > the clarinet-playing community as a whole.
>
> My goodness, Dan! You certainly are have your cynic's hat on today! ;-)
>
> Well, I have an opinion, too. It is that blowout does exist. However, I
> have never been told this by an instrument manufacturer or salesman. I
> have two sources of information on which I base that opinion. The first
> is my own observation, based on playing some grenadilla instruments, very
> old, but in very good mechanical condition, and then comparing them with
> some newer ones, also in good condition. The second is from technically-
> oriented people in the field of materials science, who know about and have
> described the phenomenon known as "depolymerization," and who have
> observed its effects under the microscope.
>
> > The evidence for the non-existence of this problem is copious.
>
> What is that evidence?
>
> > The evidence for its existence falls in the realm of urban legends.
>
> I have a hard time regarding the knowledge and experience of the entire
> field of materials science as "urban legend."
>
> > And the last way to win a technical argument is to suggest that "xxx
> > says so!"
>
> Then, you will be pleased to learn that, while I remain willing to be
> convinced that blow-out is only an urban legend, I won't make that
> intellectual and philosophical jump based on the fact that you say it
> doesn't exist.
>
> Ed Lacy
> el2@-----.edu
>
>
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