Klarinet Archive - Posting 000617.txt from 2004/11

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] An Eb quandry
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 08:28:19 -0500


Forest Aten wrote,
>A 'good' clarinet will last many years.....and as
>Lelia often suggests....a 'bad' clarinet can be
>made into a lamp.
>
>A few suggestions:
>
>1. save a few hundred more dollars to buy something
>that you can use
>2. have someone knowing a lot about clarinet help
>in the purchase
>3. enjoy the result of the sacrifice
>
>And Dee would be proud of me knowing that I've never
>made a lamp out of a clarinet...;-)

LOL--I do write flippantly about lamps, but in more serious moments, I
agree with Dee and with you, Forest. I, too, have never turned a clarinet
into a lamp, and can't imagine myself butchering a musical instrument that
way.

The low-end student clarinets I used for learning to do elementary repair
work went to local auctions or charity after I got done tinkering. Kids
from families with little money might get a start in music on a cheap
clarinet, if the alternative is no instrument at all. I don't believe in
destroying those instruments, although I don't waste much time boo-hooing
about the fate of a total CSO, (clarinet-shaped object), the type I never
bothered about learning to repair because it's unrepairable and really
can't be made to play. Unfortunately some extra-cheapies do fall into that
category (I'm thinking of those recent Chinese-made instruments with the
bright red plastic pads and the keys that bend if you look at them hard).
True, I wouldn't recommend that an adult with a job buy a Cabart, but from
what I've heard, Cabarts aren't CSOs, either; and I hope the one we've been
writing about doesn't end up in the trash.

Lelia Loban
Cthulhu for President in 2008!
Why settle for the lesser evil?

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