Klarinet Archive - Posting 000041.txt from 2004/05

From: "Film & Music Promotion Management" <FilmPromotion@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] re: old cane
Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 09:06:41 -0400

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klarinet@-----.org
From: RichChPlay@-----.com
Subject: old cane (was: and now for a quick commercial ad)
Message-ID: <8a.9c33162.2dc70229@-----.com>

on 5/2/04 10:30 AM, klarinet wrote:

>A rare chance to get cane that is more than 25 years old.
>
>Ah... the good old days....

This is the second time in the last few days that I've seen a post
praising the superiority of "old cane". I wonder if any other players
have the same experience as I do with very "well aged" cane? In my
experience, it gets too dried out and then is more subject to the
vagaries of the wetting/drying process (warping). This causes reeds
(and
tube cane from which I make reeds) to suffer in the longevity
department,
and also seems to result in less than the optimum sound that I'd like
to
hear from these reeds.

BTW, when I was growing up in the 1960's, older players that I knew
were
always praising the "old Vandoren Reeds" (certainly pre-1975!). One
player of my acquaintance bragged that he was playing on "pre-war
(WWII!!) stock". It wasn't a sound I wanted to emulate!

It all reminds me of a "Virginia Joke":

"How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?"

"Five - one to change the bulb, and four to stand around talking about
how great the old bulb was!"

Later...

David

David Niethamer
dnietham@-----.edu
http://members.aol.com/dbnclar1/

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I don't think that it is a matter of old, really old, 1/4 century old
cane, but a matter of what Vandoren was doing at the time of the
production in regards to their selection of cane.

If it was "pre Hand Select" than the reeds had a chance of having more
than 1 decent reed in a box.

(the batch of reeds that he is referring to for sale is not, it is
from the early to mid 80's.)

David Blumberg
http://artists.primetones.com/blummy

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