Klarinet Archive - Posting 000342.txt from 2003/07
From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] information needed about clarinet type "conductor"
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 17:28:34 -0400
Jeroen T. Salm wrote,
>today I found an advertisement at my "local"
>Ebay (The Netherlands) in wich is presented a
>clarinet (Bb / Boehm) "type" "conductor" for aprox.
>189 =Euro (=3D US Dollar).
Is it possible that "conductor" is a translation of a word that would read
in English as "director"? If so, could this clarinet be a Conn Director?
My first clarinet, which my father purchased new for me in 1958, was a
wooden Conn Director. Conn sold it as an intermediate instrument. It was
available in either grenadilla or plastic, but I believe that by about
1962, Conn discontinued the wooden model and the Director was only
available in plastic after that. By the time my clarinet was made, C. G.
Conn, the founder of the company, had died and his widow had sold the
"Conn" part of the company name (although she did not sell the "C. G."
part--an easy way to tell whether an instrument is a vintage Conn from the
good old days or a student-quality Conn from the bad old days). The new
owner made only student-grade instruments.
My Director has two serious problems. One is that the keys are made of
weak, brittle smelter (pot metal) that cracks very easily. Those keys are
trash. They must never be bent, even slightly, or else they will break
right off. It's difficult to do a good job of re-padding a clarinet with
keys that can't be bent at all. I broke the low G# key while playing
normally in an orchestra class. I pressed the key slightly harder than I
normally would, because I was nervous, but I was not exactly Xena, Warrior
Princess; I have tiny hands, and my 5th finger should not have been nearly
strong enough to break a key, something that has never happened to me on
any other clarinet. The touch-lever snapped completely off. A local
repairman hand-cast a new replacement key for me.
The second problem is that my Director has atrocious tuning, with extremely
wide 12ths. Let's just say that I learned a lot more than I wanted to know
about how to bend the pitch of a note.
I still own my Director, but I only keep it for nostalgic reasons. I never
play it any more and would not recommend it to anybody. In the USA, the
Conn Director is a low-value instrument, not sought-after by collectors.
Lelia Loban
E-mail: lelialoban@-----.net
Web site (original music scores as audio or print-out):
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban
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