Klarinet Archive - Posting 000070.txt from 2000/05

From: "Kevin Callahan" <kionon@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Metal clarinets
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 06:15:05 -0400

>From: "Franklin Kercher" <kranwli@-----.net>
>Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
>To: <klarinet@-----.org>
>Subject: Re: [kl] Metal clarinets
>Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 00:26:41 -0500
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kevin Callahan <kionon@-----.com>
>To: klarinet@-----.org>
>Date: Monday, May 01, 2000 10:18 PM
>Subject: [kl] Metal clarinets
>
>
> >
> >For the first time in my life last friday, I saw a metal clarinet.
> >Unfortunately it was non-functional, and even if it was my band director
> >refused to let me play it :( Well, this got me thinking, I've read about
> >them, even seen pictures of them, but only rarely; why didn't metal
> >clarinets catch on? Donny, a trumpet/trombone doubler friend of mine,
>said
> >because they turn green too easily, do they really corrode that badly?
> >
> >Kevin Callahan
> >If Dr. Trent makes a lamp out of that clarinet, I want it.
> >
> >
>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.
>
>

So, they wanted to do with the clarinet what was done with flute, right?
Except it didn't work. Unlike the nice light sound a metal flute gives,
a metal clarinet is not superior or even average when compared to a
plastic or wood clarinet. Have I got this right?

Kevin Callahan
Jumping at the woodside
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

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