Klarinet Archive - Posting 000897.txt from 1999/12
From: klara <klahall@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] RC Prestige
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 1999 23:10:21 -0500
On Sat, 25 Dec 1999 23:55:55 CST "Leslie Schultz" <mewsic@-----.com>
writes:
annhall wrote>>an adult student here choose the 'Vintage' and
><snip>
>>I would find it almost impossible to play his instrument in tune.
Which
>>negates any joy in playing the instrument.
>
> I've been trying out instruments lately, and my teacher has a
Vintage
>that I'm probably going to buy. ... and now it has better tuning than
any
>instrument I've ever played onl. But that's just my personal experience
w/ one
>lone instrument...
Leslie and Noteguy7
I am glad to hear that the RC Prestige can be a good instrument. that is
the danger of judging from one instrument. The one i tried must have
been a dog.
And my Bb was from Bay, and the A was adjusted/tuned by Ridenour. Both
are VERY nice instruments.
When i first began to play in the community orchestra i did not have an A
clarinet. Before that i played in a small orchestra that because of the
size and strength of certain members played mostly classical period
works, And i got good at transposing. (Was comfortable playing in E , B,
Gb) But the larger group played more romantic and 20th century and the
transpositions were much harder, and so both of us who had Buffet Bb's
did not have A's used the Symphony owned Selmer A's. Both of those
Selmers were unusually bad, and that added to the Selmer/Buffet split
made those instruments a struggle to play. Whoever was playing principal
took the better of the two. I remember on passage on 2nd were i had to
play a long low F, that was impossible to bring up to pitch. I tried all
sorts of things to bring that note in tune, and pulled out the bell for
half the cork width,thinking i might be able to play a very flat F# that
way, but it turned out that the low bell brought the F up to pitch. But
i had to pull it just before that one passage, and quickly jam back into
regular position to play rest of piece. We did get that symphony to have
those instruments tuned and adjusted and they improved, from 5 or 6 notes
that required extreme adjustments to two or 3. To make sure that it
wasn't just that the instrument did play Buffet characteristics, I only
practiced on the A one summer. And i got pretty good at the adjustments.
But i was saving up for my very own A clarinet, and was fortunate to be
in place for a good used Buffet. From the first moment i played that
instrument, it was a dream.
So that is all the background for why i am very critical of pitch
problems.
Actually my Bb is not a 'full Buffet', but an Evette Schaeffer. I picked
it out of the batch of instruments that my undegrad teacher had from
Charles Bay. This particular instrument is very smooth and focused and
is wonderful for chamber music and Mozart parts in Bb. (Later i found out
that these instruments had a slightly smaller bore.) And it does have
just a bit less capability on the extreme loud volume, but has worked
well because even my orchestra playing is with small or when larger, not
all strong strings, rarely do i wish for a different instrument.
So i liked the way the Vintage blew, but not the pitch of that one
instrument.
But be careful, there is that one handicapped instrument looking for an
owner(grin).
annhall
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