Klarinet Archive - Posting 000801.txt from 2002/03

From: Audrey Travis <vsofan@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] Time for an outraged response
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 18:14:55 -0500

Except that, if I'm not mistaken, "she" is actually a "he".

Audrey

Daniel Leeson wrote:

> It's a bad time for me to get myself in trouble with an outraged
> statement because I'm leaving town on Saturday to attend the American
> Society of Eighteenth Century Studies in Colorado Springs and my ability
> to pay attention to any mail responses will be limited.
>
> But Kelly Abraham of New York has changed the picture with her statement
> about the Selmer 10G. She said:
>
> > I was told at ClarinetFest in New Orleans in August,
> > last year by the Selmer representatives that the 10G
> > was being discontinued also. I was asking about geting
> > a set with some added features, and was told that
> > delivery of 10Gs would be from already-made stock
> > only, and production was almost finished in Paris. Too
> > bad, as I REALLY love the sound color of those
> > instruments!
>
> I don't doubt for one second that Kelly likes the character of sound she
> gets from a clarinet, and it is probably a lush, wonderful, pleasing
> sound. If I heard it, I'd love it. But this idea that one can get the
> character of sound they want from a particular manufacturer's instrument
> (even down to the genus and species; i.e., Selmer's 10G) is a snake that
> just will not die, even when its head is cut off. You can given tons of
> rational counterexamples, and still some intelligent and probably very
> competent even expert clarinet player will maintain that what is not
> true is very much true. And worse, that same player will transmit these
> old wives tales to their students who, in turn, will go out and buy
> clarinet X under the belief that he or she sounds better on that
> particular one than on any other.
>
> I suggest that Kelly's sound is Kelly's sound on almost ANY clarinet.
> Her sound is a function of her teeth, her chest, her sinus cavities, her
> body structure, the amount of body fat, her total physical toute
> ensemble. And if she gets a sound that just likes when clarinet X is
> inserted into her mouth, she will get effectively the identical sound
> when X is removed and Y inserted.
>
> The validity of the notion that a particular clarinet is resonsible for
> the character of its sound has been battled on this list for years. But
> the minute someone comes on who has not been previously involved in the
> discussions (or who has been involved but simply choses to ignore the
> enormous amount of counter evidence), the first thing we hear is that
> manufacturer A makes a clarinet that sounds better than any other
> manufacturer. Gag me with a spoon, we're at it again.
>
> Oh, that the manufacturers say so is true enough. LeBlanc is the world
> champion in inventing meaningless words that describe the sound
> character of model abc as contrasted with model def, but I suggest that
> it is all marketing hype, nonsense that causes you to want to buy their
> instrument.
>
> Once the air has left the mouth, the character of that person's sound
> produced on a clarinet is a closed issue. It will be the same good or
> bad character if the clarinet is by almost any manufacturer and almost
> any material used to make the instrument.
>
> And while I am getting older as I see these comments on this list, I am
> not getting less feisty. It is my intentions to bitch, bitch, bitch
> whenever these assertions arise. That is, unless Kelly is able to
> describe the physical phenomena deriving from that particular genus and
> species of clarinet and which cause what she suggests is a particularly
> beautiful "sound color" (whatever that is).
>
> This list is getting a lot less feisty, too. Nobody challenges these
> statements anymore. The ones who know are just getting too old and
> tired to react any longer. How many times can everyone yell,
> "BALONEY!"? People -- good clarinet players too -- make outrageous
> statements and no one sets their house on fire or threatens them with
> bodily harm.
>
> Some guy the other day suggested a particular bass clarinet mouthpiece
> and added that the use of a Rovner Ligature was obligatory to achieve
> the proper sound. So I asked how he reached this conclusion, and he
> seems to have gone into out space, never to be heard from again. And
> I'm not a bigot. I used a Rovner ligature for years. It was nice, it
> was not terribly expensive, it held the reed on nicely, but unless the
> departed person has some evidence about which I do not know, I was
> unaware that only that particular ligature type would produce a
> satisfactory sound.
>
> Gag me with a spoon!!
>
> --
> ***************************
> ** Dan Leeson **
> ** leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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