Klarinet Archive - Posting 000640.txt from 2004/07

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Material influence on sound...one more time
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 08:03:08 -0400

Has any company ever promoted a rubber clarinet as a top-of-the-line
instrument? I have some old advertisements featuring rubber clarinets, but
all are listed as student or economy models. The hard rubber clarinets
I've seen and/or played on have also been student or economy models.
They've all been notably bad instruments, but the worst problems had to do
with intonation, more than tone quality. Moreover, the intonation problems
were typical of low-end clarinets in general, regardless of materials:
extremely wide twelfths, stuffy clarion D and E from the lower register
key, and off-pitch LH C#/G# and throat tones. I have no clue whether the
rubber construction material might have affected the quality, since I've
never been able to find any rubber clarinet that a leading manufacturer
claimed as a top-quality competitor against fine wooden clarinets from the
same era.

Some of the old rubber clarinets have a metal tube up the center of one or
both stacks, to protect the integrity of the shape, but sections without
metal can warp, if they're subjected to heat and sunlight, for instance in
a case left open for display at a summer flea market. I saw one clarinet
that sagged quite a lot, in an old case of the type that stores the
mouthpiece and barrel, still joined, in one compartment and the two
sections and the bell still joined and suspended over an empty space down
the middle. I doubt that there's much a technician could do to salvage a
warped rubber clarinet.

Lelia Loban
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban
Re-defeat Bush in 2004!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org