Klarinet Archive - Posting 000563.txt from 2002/06

From: "James Hobby" <jhobby@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Synthetic reeds
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 00:21:32 -0400

When I was in high school -- back when a plastic reed was just a chunk of
plastic -- I got one. I don't have any memory of why. No matter what I did
to it, I couldn't make it sound like a clarinet. At worst, it sounded like
a duck. At best, it sounded like an oboe. My instructor made great fun of
it. I thought, well, here's a useless expense!

A week before playing festival, our one and only oboe woke up with
strepthroat. The main solo oboe spots were cued in the first clarinet
parts. I fixed the reed on an extra mouthpiece, made a quick switch, and
played the first solo. The conductor started looking around, trying to find
the oboe. <g>

We got it to work well enough that we got by with it at festival. The
auditorium was not raked, so the judges couldn't see anything but the
outside desk players, so they didn't know there was no oboe. I got a nice
compliment from one of the judges on my "nice oboe tone" during the Holst
First Suite.

Jim

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