Klarinet Archive - Posting 000819.txt from 2002/03

From: Ed Wojtowicz <ewoj@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Selmer clarinets and my indecent proposition
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 07:51:43 -0500

> From: Kenneth Wolman <kenneth.wolman@-----.net>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 23:02:00 -0500
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: RE: [kl] Selmer clarinets and my indecent proposition
>
> --but somewhere in the back of my head is this vague awareness
> that Buffet has been making the R-13 for at least 40 years and the old
> warhorse still stays in style. WHY these constant makeovers? I'm not being
> disingenous here, folks--I really AM as big a putz as I sound when I ask
> whether the market among clarinetists and wannabes is sufficiently large to
> warrant the kind of LeBlanc piano-in-the-front-parlor marketing campaigns
> that create their comedic catalogue-for-the-john literature or this run of
> new-model Selmers to phase out...well, how many models are going to join the
> Balanced Tone, Centered Tone, etc., on the funeral pyre of clarinets that
> nobody supposedly will buy anymore.

Although your question implies that it is only the other makers-why has
Buffet added a number of other models over the years (Elite, RC, S-1,
Festival, Vintage, etc)? Should everyone else just throw up their hands and
say "Well, Buffet has the R13, we should all close up shop!"

I think that while the Buffet is still enormously popular, it is worthwhile
to note that increasingly, more people are looking at (and some are playing)
clarinets from other makers. I remember that at one time, it seemed nobody,
but nobody would even consider it. I think the competition is good and will
only benefit clarinetists. It will encourage innovation and hopefully make
for high quality instruments in the marketplace.

I remember a time when General Motors thought that nobody would buy/drive a
Japanese car. It was this kind of thinking that got them into trouble with
consumers.

Ed

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