Klarinet Archive - Posting 000099.txt from 1999/06

From: "Dee D. Hays" <deehays@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re:older buffet Bb
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 01:14:54 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary L. Smith <garysmith@-----.com>
Date: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: [kl] Re:older buffet Bb

>At 11:15 AM 5/29/99 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>Ditto with the 22,000 Bb and the 31,000 A I had about 14 years ago. They
>>were gifts from a 70 year old friend who had been a fabulous player in his
>>time - but I just couldn't play on the darn things - pitch was way out -
>>but the sound was great.
>
>Wouldn't these, in fact, be high pitch instruments?

Not necessarily. The serial number on the Bb puts it at 1937 (courtesy of
the serial number list maintained on Mark Charette's excellent clarinet
site) . Even though Low Pitch was not formally adopted by the international
congress until 1939, makers (including Buffet) had started marking clarinets
as Low Pitch or High Pitch on the instrument itself least 30 years before
then. If you track the serial numbers on the horns for sale on eBay and
track what was marked on the horns, the Boehm system horns that were this
late are probably Low Pitch as it appears as if Low Pitch was already so
common that it was the de facto standard and once again the makers were no
longer marking the horns. Of course this is only deduction based on a
limited amount of data. Of course if the horn is a quarter step sharp (50
cents on a tuner) then it could be a high pitch. You could also try
contacting Buffet and see if they continued to make High Pitch horns this
late. Their information, if available, should be more accurate than
deductions made from tracking the auctions.

Lots of things can lead to pitch problems. Pad height above the holes can
affect pitch dramatically and affect each note differently. Bore diameter
will also affect consistency of tuning throughout the range. If it is a
1937 horn, the odds are that it has a larger bore diameter than today's
instruments. Large bore horns do have their tuning idiosyncrocies. Then of
course there is the perennial mouthpiece question. Is this the best
mouthpiece for this instrument? There are probably other elements besides
these.

Dee Hays
Canton, SD

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