Klarinet Archive - Posting 000584.txt from 2003/02

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Impingo Wood Supply for Clarinets
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 15:13:30 -0500

Elizabeth Berry wrote,
>I'm not playing a synthetic clarinet! I'll chop down
>a tree and make my own, gosh darn it!

I felt the same way, after a bad experience with a truly atrocious metal
alto clarinet in junior high school (late Jurassic). There are some stinko
metal clarinets available, no doubt about it. I see them at flea markets
all the time, and wouldn't give a wooden nickel for the trashier student
models. Still, there's plenty of wooden clarinet-shaped junk out there,
too.

A *good* metal clarinet (H. Bettoney Silva-Bet), probably from about 1930,
changed my mind about metal. I only bought it because it was $20 at a yard
sale and I needed a cheap victim while I learned to do repair work. If I'd
known then that the Silva-Bet was a serious attempt to manufacture a
professional quality metal clarinet, I wouldn't have monkeyed with it; but,
to my surprise, after I cleaned it up and repadded it, it sounded like . .
. a clarinet! I don't play my Silva- Bet much, because the balance feels
odd enough to distract me (metal clarinets feel as though they want to roll
to the player's right, although with correct hand position, they don't
actually swivel), but I've heard list member Jim Lande sound wonderful on
his metal clarinets. With my eyes closed, I don't think I could tell the
difference between a good wooden clarinet and a good metal clarinet.

Better student models in metal can sound decent, too. I've got a Selmer
(Paris) Barbier, the cheapest of the Selmer student line in the 1931
catalogue, that's considerably better than the plastic Bundies from the
1960s and compares well with the plastic Bundies from the 1980s. My only
E-flat clarinet in playable condition is a metal H. N. White "American
Standard High Grade," a student instrument from about 1930. It's playable,
there's nothing strange about it except for the usual unbalanced feel, and
the flea market price was too tempting to pass up ($65 in good but
unrestored condition, in 2000); although every time I struggle to reel in
the wide 12ths, I remind myself to quit procrastinating and re-pad the
Albert system wooden Buffet I found later. Bottom line: as with most other
things, it's dangerous to generalize about metal clarinets.

Lelia Loban
lelialoban@-----.net
Please note new address!

-----------------------

Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 19:33:36 -0800
From: "Shadow Cat" <13shadowcat@-----.net>
Subject: Re: [kl] Impingo Wood Supply for Clarinets
Message-ID: <crush-all-666clarinets-@-----.net>

I'm making my stupid pet human type this. This is Shadow Cat, making Lelia
think she fell asleep at the computer, while I secretly control her
fingers. She wrote,

>Bottom line: as with most other things, it's dangerous to generalize about
metal clarinets.

Bottom line: it's dangerous to have anything to do with metal
screech-sticks. I suspect they're wired for electricity. Some day, you
could be squealing and hooting in the usual obscene and disgusting manner,
and all of a sudden, zzzzzzzt! you're a crispy critter. It's an
international conspiracy, and I know who's behind it, too: the evil G*rb*ge
Tr*ck demon. Humans have their uses, particularly on cold nights, but
never let a pair of humans fool you, not even if they co-opt you with a
nice warm bed with plenty of blankets -- no, not even if they let you
snuggle up between them and share a pillow when it's snowing outside.
Lelia seems harmless enough, but the fact is, warm blankets or not, she
feeds the G*rb*ge Tr*ck monster once a week. She saves up choice goodies
for it. She won't let me have fish bones and chicken bones, oh, no,
because she's saving those for the evil G*rb*ge Tr*ck. And it all comes
from playing the cl*r*n*t. The metal ones are the worst. You can tell
just by looking at them that they're larvae of the V*c**m Cl**ner, which is
the juvenile form of the G*rb*ge Tr*ck. You let metal screech-sticks into
the house, and mark my words, someday you'll wake up to find a V*c**m
Cl**ner in bed with you and the G*rb*ge Tr*ck breaking down your kitchen
wall and chomping up your entire refrigerator!

I'm only telling you these things for your own good, you know.
Sssssst!
Shadow Cat

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