Klarinet Archive - Posting 000657.txt from 2004/07

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Material influence on sound...one more time
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 12:41:40 -0400

Lelia, Forest's answer is very much on point. There are
undoubtedly a variety of reasons why one material can be
considered better for clarinets, but the nature of that
"betterness" is not that it produces a better sound. Despite the
variety of dcomments suggesting that there are responsible people
claiming that material is important in the quality of sound,
without a real-life blind test of players executing on a variety
of instruments that differ in materials, those view are nothing
but opinion.

Metal, glass, rubber, wood, you name it. Given any clarinet
properly manufactured and using any of these media, I suggest
that it is impossible to distinguish between them on the basis of
quality of sound.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Forest Aten [mailto:forestaten@-----.net]
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 6:39 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] Material influence on sound...one more time

> 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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