Klarinet Archive - Posting 000647.txt from 2004/07

From: "Forest Aten" <forestaten@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Material influence on sound...one more time
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 09:40:11 -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!
>

Lelia,

Manufacturers will probably never use rubber in a professional clarinet. The
bore and tone holes are drilled in a very precise way in the best clarinets.
High speed precision drilling requires a material that is very heat
tolerant. Rubber doesn't meet this criteria. Better (and more expensive)
high tech materials are available to manufacturers....and these materials
consistently produce better clarinets.

Forest Aten

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