Klarinet Archive - Posting 000651.txt from 2001/11

From: "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Reamers or "Don't try this at home"
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 22:38:12 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tony Pay [mailto:Tony@-----.uk]
> Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2001 2:00 PM
>
> The point is, in order to learn something, you need to respect those who
> know more; but probably more importantly. you need to respect yourself
> as someone who will in the future be able to understand what they
> already know.
>
> > This is not magic, just 25 years of hard won experience.
>
> Exactly.
>
The problem, from my perspective, is that I don't know where or how to gain
the experience without in the process almost inevitably (unless I'm really
unbelievably lucky) ruining _someone's_ instrument - my own if I'm very
scrupulous about whose clarinet I experiment on. I've never looked on repair
technicians as "magicians," but they already know what I'd need to go
through a lot of potentially expensive trial and error to find out. I'm
assuming (perhaps hopefully) that modern repair training includes a lot of
work on some sort of "cadaver" instruments that have been accumulated for
the purpose. As a student, I had teachers do things to my clarinets that I'm
certain in hindsight were part of their "learning process." I haven't quite
gotten up the self-confidence/nerve/foolishness (?) to try anything more
with a student's equipment than a little tweak on a mouthpiece facing -
something I have done many times on my own mouthpieces.

But then I don't do my own plumbing, either. The certainty of it's leaking
on my first several tries and wetting everything in sight leads me to call a
professional plumber the second anything goes wrong in our house that
involves water. The plumber's not a magician, either, but I don't end up
with a wet kitchen when he leaves. :-)

I do find a great deal of value in knowing what _can_ be done so I can
collaborate intelligently with the repairman (instrument technician OR
plumber) when I call on him and evaluate his suggestions and, later, his
finished work.

FWIW

Karl Krelove

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