Klarinet Archive - Posting 000348.txt from 2005/06

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Basset clarinets are regular orchestral instruments
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:26:24 -0400


-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Michlin [mailto:amichlin@-----.com]
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 6:58 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] Basset clarinets are regular orchestral instruments

Adam writes:

"Dan's call to action seems to tell me that their future, at least as a mass
produced instrument, is at least a concern. Perhaps this is not the case.
Propaganda can do wonders, but tends to not be as universally effective as
writing a check."

I'd like to restate what caused my call to action. I picked up the Buffet
catalog at the Norman, OK convention, and there were six models of clarinets
(perhaps more, I didn't count carefully but certainly six), from the
highrest price professional clarinets to the more modest ones for student
use. There were no basset horns OR basset clarinets present.

So I went to Francois Kloc who is the big cheese in America for Buffet, and
I asked him why not. Francois is a literate and cultured Frenchman and I
can spot two miles away when they do not want to reveal some detail. That
was Francois. He hemmed and he hawed, but what I got out of it was that
there was considerably less interest in those instruments right now and
maybe permanently.

If I were to contrast his mind set with something, I remember when the bass
clarinet in A was removed from the Selmer catalog and now you can't one at
all from them. In fact, I told the big cheese from Selmer that I hoped that
he would restore the bass in A, and I got a very awkward answer, something
to the effect that, "If you are prepared to wait 10 years to get one..."
That was not a marketing savvy statement. He was poo-pooing the use of the
instrument and justifying Selmer's stance to get rid of them. I'm not
blaming him. If I were in that position in Selmer, I would have taken the
instrument out of production too.

So the bottom line is that I see a distinct parallel in the removal of the
basset instruments from Buffet's catalog and the removal of the bass in A
from the Selmer catalog. Of course all three can be bought as one-offs from
Fox in Canada, but that is not what I had in mind.

DNL

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