Klarinet Archive - Posting 000008.txt from 2004/08

From: "Matthew Lloyd" <Matthew@-----.uk>
Subj: RE: [kl] Material influence on sound...one more time
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2004 12:50:36 -0400

I believe that the Boosey and Hawkes Imperial models WERE available in
Ebonite. Certainly the Eb was.

Matthew

-----Original Message-----
From: Lelia Loban [mailto:lelialoban@-----.net]
Sent: 17 July 2004 13:02
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [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!

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