Klarinet Archive - Posting 001285.txt from 2004/03

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Fun day at Festival
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 20:33:23 -0500

At 11:20 AM 3/22/2004 -0600, Forest Aten wrote:
>I never thought of myself as an "old geezer" but what the heck. :-) I do
>perform professionally on Buffet clarinets. All of the professionals in the
>Dallas/Ft. Worth area (except a few professional educators) perform on
>Buffet clarinets. I believe that if you interviewed these professional
>players, you would find that they play Buffet clarinets because they prefer
>them to other clarinets....and this based mostly on objective criteria.
>
>Most of the secondary school players that I work with will step up to R-13s
>or Festivals before they graduate high school. I take my students through a
>process of selecting this instrument. I encourage them to try every
>instrument they can and with Brook Mays Music in town, they have plenty of
>opportunity to play as many models and brands as they like. They must
>complete a survey for each instrument auditioned, based on objective critera
>established before the trials begin.
>99% of the students pick out a Buffet.

But would they if they did NOT know that all those local pros played
them? I'll wager that if you could do the auditioning WITHOUT letting them
see the brand name, there would be a much less unanimous conclusion. Not
that Buffets are less than fine instruments; they are very good. But so
are Selmers, Yamahas, Leblancs... For there to be such an EXTREME result
as you report suggests significant bias in the process.

I see this all the time in the business. People come in saying, in effect,
"I'm here to buy my Bach Stradivarius trumpet/Selmer Paris sax/Buffet
clarinet" without even CONSIDERING trying anything else. I cajole them
into giving other comparable instruments a trial, but when they are done,
they buy what they came in for, pre-conceived notions fully
intact. Sometimes, this is because the instructor TOLD them that was what
they "had to" buy. Or sometimes, it is "because that's what my FRIEND just
bought." Of course, this is likely at least PART of the reason the local
pros all play Buffets, too! And thus the merry-go-round goes on and on...

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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