Klarinet Archive - Posting 000470.txt from 2004/02

From: "mlmarmer" <mlmarmer@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Costco Clarinets!!!
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 21:00:32 -0500

My first clarinet in 1962 was from Montgomery Wards in Wheaton, MD and it
was a piece of ......... (Insert your own words).

The keys would constantly get bent out of shape and I remember my music
teacher at Dale Music in Silver Spring, MD, the late Paul Eberly, would
spent 5 minutes bending keys. He also was a wiz in fixing my reeds with
reed rush! I wish I knew how he did that!

After a couple of years, my clarinet was so full of solder, from all the
keys that broke on it. The little piece that pulled the pad covers down
where those lower four keys for the right pinky broke and got soldered. A
pad part, for one of those keys wasn't covering a hole right and that broke.
I guess after being constantly bent back into shape, the stress of the metal
went. The A key had broken and so on! But it was lovable clarinet and I
have fond memories of it, before it got replaced with my R-13 Buffet, from
Chuck Levin's in Wheaton for a whopping $295, almost like going from a Yugo
to Mercedes!

But I still have the mouthpiece cap, that I use for my Vandoren 2RV, from
that clarinet, and I have the nickel silver screws from the ligature from
that clarinet on my Buffet Ligature. So a piece of that clarinet is still
with me today, 42 years later!

Long live cheap clarinets! LOL. It is an expirence.

Mike Marmer
Germantown, MD

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