Klarinet Archive - Posting 000022.txt from 2000/05

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] My new clarinet!
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 07:38:33 -0400

. . . I feel like the guy who went to Vegas for a fun weekend, and woke up
with a big headache next to a new wife.

My A (a 1963 Buffet R-13) had been giving me some problems -- in particular,
the throat Bb and chalumeau C# were fuzzy and irritating. I planned to get
it overhauled this summer to get it back into shape. Unfortunately, last
Saturday I had an orchestra gig. Seemed like the entire second movement of
the Dvorak 'cello concerto consists of these two notes.

I have this "friend" who owns a chain of music stores in beautiful Puyallup,
Washington. In the interest of "helping me out," he kindly let me "borrow"
some clarinets to try. So I did.

. . . and am now the proud owner of a Yamaha YCL72CS. It plays very much
like a Buffet (which I believe is no accident), but has significant
improvements in the evenness of tone from note to note and intonation than
the grizzled veteran I've been hauling around all these years. In fact, it
plays pretty much identically to a new Buffet Festival that I also tried --
like an R-13 with the register key moved up to where it belongs.

I took the horn to rehearsal, and played it in the hall in a blind taste
test, me on stage and several of my wind section-mates spread around the
room. They liked it too.

Why the Yamaha? Easy -- I got a *great* deal on it. (As I said, Tom is a
very good friend -- he conducted the wind ensemble at my wedding). FWIW,
the quality control on all of the Yamahas and the Buffets that I have tried
over the last 2 months has been consistently excellent; I'm very, very
impressed with the new horns one can buy today.

I'm not going to say that everyone should immediately drop their treasured
French clarinets and go Japanese -- the majority of the horns in my arsenal
are still Buffet, and I'd buy another in a heartbeat. I *would* advise
people in the market to give the Yamahas a try, along with all of the new
European instruments.

kjf

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