Klarinet Archive - Posting 000755.txt from 2000/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Selmer buys UMI
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 18:01:54 -0500

Bill Hausmann wrote:

> Tony Pay wrote:

> > The truth is that clarinets have, to all intents and purposes, been
> > 'done'. We don't really need competition in that market. The
> > choice we presently have is simply a luxury. The illusion that we
> > do need such competition has to be continually recreated
> > artificially, by pretending that there's such a thing as an
> > instrument, reed, ligature or whatever that will turn a mediocre
> > player into a good player.
> >
> > I for one deplore the role of this group in that recreation, and
> > consistently argue against it.
> >
> > However, where we *do* need something that might be called
> > competition, but which is really better captured by the newly-coined
> > word 'co-opetition' (meaning something akin to the free challenge of
> > ideas in search of truth, or workability, akin to the scientific
> > enterprise), is in the development of computer software, on which we
> > are increasingly reliant.
> >
> > Our voices need to be raised against the dangerous corporate
> > domination of this field, and against tricksy support of such
> > corporate domination, rather than against the trivial, merely
> > money-making jostlings of the Selmer corporation.
>
> I really cannot agree with this.

[snip]

Yes, I see the logic of your position. I just said as much in reply to
another post I saw before yours.

I'd allowed myself to make a connection between two things I feel very
strongly about, and blinded myself to the third thing that makes the
logic of that connection faulty.

In passing, I'm not sure that I agree that the world was only waiting
for the polycylindrical clarinet. I spend much of my time playing on
designs that antedate that by some considerable time, and am still
partly of the opinion that I played better on an old E. J. Albert Boehm
system clarinet than any of the modern Buffets I've used.

That makes even stronger the point that clarinets don't really need
further development. Your argument about maintaining standards of
production is an independent one.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

....of course, it goes without saying.....

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