Klarinet Archive - Posting 000297.txt from 2005/06

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Trouble in River City
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:14:18 -0400

Because I am next to the Buffet display, I was generously given every single
item that was given to potential costomers. They are very nice people, and
Francois Kloc was most gracious in his gifts. One of the gifts was a
complete display of the Buffet clarinet products, and ladies and gentlement,
I think we in the clarinet world have screwed up.

The very expensive and very complete brochure showed just about every
combination of soprano clarinets except the basset clarinet. There was also
no basset clarinet in the Buffet display. There were three bass clarinets
in the Buffet display but no basset horns. So I asked Francois about that.

He was very politic and the impression I got was that Buffet is not pressing
the lines of those two products because they are not money winners. They
had D and C clarinets galore, lots of different varieties of E-flat
clarinets, and 5 or 6 different varieties of B-flat and A clarinets.

So what I see in the bleakest sense is that after 200 years the basset
clarinet was reborn in great hopes and the clarinet world has simply ignored
the challenge. While I doubt if these instruments are to be taken out of
the Buffet catalogue of available clarinets in the immediate future, were I
in the management of that company, I would not tolerate a product line that
is not selling. It costs money to keep that product line in the public's
face, even if none are made, and I would simply stop production, have a
bargain basement sale for any still around, and never make another one.

I see the same genearal scenario for the basset horn. Either the public
starts buying them and take them out of the product line.

All things being equal, this time I don't blame the manufacturers, but the
clarinet players for having shown such little interest in the revival of the
basset clarinet and possibly an equal disinterest in basset horns.

That's where the trouble is in River city.

Dan Leeson
dnleeson@-----.net

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