Klarinet Archive - Posting 000595.txt from 2002/04

From: "Heinemann, Stephen" <sjh@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] A profound question of nomenclature
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 18:06:35 -0400

> On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, J. Shouryu Nohe wrote:
>
> > Since clarinetists refer to the E-flat clarinet as the "eefer," why do
> we
> > never hear of the B-flat clarinet as the "beefer"?
>
> "Never" is kind of a broad statement to make - we at NMSU use the terms
> "beefer" and "ayfer" almost as prolifically as we do "eefer."
>
Mea culpa for not doing my research. The term has indeed appeared before on
this list.

However, I'm more mortified for having discovered that four years ago Dan
Leeson quite properly objected to using the term "eefer." I quote:

"Dignity, ladies and gentlemen, dignity. It is an E-flat clarinet.
Anything that makes money for us should be called by its real name, not a
nickname that sounds as if it were invented in the hills of Appalachia."
And to think that this whole stupid line of thought on my part began when I
finally got my own good eefer. I mean E-flat clarinet. (It's a Buffer. I
mean Buffet.)

So, while I'm in my state of mortification, I'll observe that,
etymologically, the term "ayfer" must certainly refer to an A-flat clarinet.

Abashedly yours,
Steve Heinemann
Bradley University

****************************
Dr. Stephen Heinemann
Associate Professor of Music
Theory/Composition/Clarinet
Bradley University
Peoria, IL 61625
(309)677-2603
sjh@-----.edu
****************************

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