Klarinet Archive - Posting 000063.txt from 2000/05

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Metal clarinets
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 06:00:15 -0400

At 12:26 AM 5/2/2000 -0500, Franklin Kercher wrote:
>Before WW2, metal clarinets were mass produced by thr thousands to fill a
>huge growing market for tough, durable, low maintainance clarinets (schools
>mostly). Most of these were produced by more companies than you have fingers
>and toes to cash in on this market. Most of these companies spent more on
>advertising than on perfecting their product, so most were terrible sounding
>clunkers made worse by poor mouthpieces and inexperienced students playing
>them. There were some good sounding quality ones made, but the reputation
>was already hard set, and with the vast improvements in plastics during and
>just after the war, the better companies quit making them to save their
>reputations. Of the three I have restored, only one sounds decent.
>
Metal clarinets were in common use, even among professionals, in the 1920's
and 30's. You see them frequently in pictures of old bands. The
University of Pittsburgh only recently stopped using their gold-colored
ones for marching band (the section mutinied!). They are durable. I keep
one in my truck all year long (in Michigan! Let's see you do THAT with
wood!) to pull out and play any time I have a few minutes. It is not the
world's best clarinet, but it does respond well and play reasonably in tune
(it gets kind on "ringy" on some notes, though). Plastic clarinets
eventually took over the low-end market, I'm sure more because they LOOK
like wood clarinets than due to any inherent superiority in sound.

Brands to look for: Selmer, King, Noblet, and my Walter W. Mueller "The
Empire State" is not bad, either.

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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