Klarinet Archive - Posting 000383.txt from 1999/07

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Artist Instruments from Local Stores
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 13:28:07 -0400

Cindy Field opined:

<<<I have to agree with Margaret. Mail order is great for many things, but
you take your chances with a clarinet. Unless you can tweak the instrument
yourself or can pay someone locally to provide that service, you might be
better off visiting a GOOD music store where they know clarinets. (I'm not
referring to the local guitar shop that happens to carry some clarinets.)>>>

I must respectfully disagree. I have purchased a number of clarinets &
saxophones from the Woodwind and IMS, and have not had one iota of damage
that wasn't caused by shipping--and them always replaced with an undamaged
instrument, no questions asked. All of the instruments that I have
purchased from them worked fine out of the box; their repair people are at
least as good as anyone I can hire here in Seattle. Of course, I get some
tweaking done--but that's my problem.

Conversely, I have found that many of the artist-level instruments in the
local music chain stores to be "shop-worn"--after a few months of hanging on
the wall, being fondled by every high school clarinetist that drops by, they
are often horribly out of adjustment.

There are "good" music stores out there. Here in Seattle, we are blessed w/
Steve Keene's Custom Music, and Tom Anderson's chain of Music Centers down
in the Tacoma area. The vast majority of "music" stores, however, are
staffed with morons who, while perfectly capable of helping you decide which
electric guitar has the loudest pickups, haven't a clue about which end of a
woodwind instrument one would blow in to. Of course they lie about that,
cheerfully deceiving each band parent on the way in about how the instrument
they're selling at 100% markup is so great, and touting how their "service
plan" will save you tons of money.

As far as repair people go, in my experience it would be better to run my
clarinet through a dishwasher than to hand it to the local shop's "repair
person." I've found that the repair people who do the best work don't work
for the chain stores--they either work for themselves (like Steve Keene
mentioned above) or band together in small shops catering to repair (like
Dan Oberloh & Steve McComas here in Burien).

Consequently, I think it foolish to spend an extra thousand bucks to buy an
artist-level instrument from a local music store, when you're going to have
to drive a ways to get to a decent repair person anyway. IMHO, you're much
better off saving the six or seven hundred bucks buying the horn from Linda
Argiris or Dennis Bamber (who, incidentally, sell enough artist-quality
instruments to have a top-notch repair staff) and if necessary, getting it
fine-tuned by the repair person of your choice.

kjf

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