Klarinet Archive - Posting 000298.txt from 2005/06

From: shawthings@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] Trouble in River City
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:20:13 -0400

Dan,
I think real trouble is that they are so expensive that most players
can't justify the cost, especially when they're rarely needed and more
difficult to play.
Tim Shaw

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Leeson <dnleeson@-----.net>
To: klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 19:12:39 -0500
Subject: [kl] Trouble in River City

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

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