Klarinet Archive - Posting 000041.txt from 2005/08

From: ormo2ndtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] Buffet Question
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 13:01:24 -0400

Chris=A0Ciarlariello wrote:

> I'm still doing some research to decide which
> Buffet clarinet I wish to get.

Chris, actually holding a clarinet in your hand (for more than just a
few minutes) and playing it and listening to the result and
experimenting with different mouthpieces and embouchures and genres of
music are all _absolutely_ part of the research that you need to do
before you make a purchase, especially when you're thinking of spending
thousands of dollars.

To use myself as an example, when I decided to move up from my plastic
clarinet, I played $3000-$4000 top-of-the-line instruments at
ClarinetFests and at the local dealer. One day, my teacher commented
that she had a used wooden instrument which she used to play, but now
"the magic was gone" because the clarinet had cracked and had been
pinned. She would sell it to me for $900.

I was stunned because her cracked and pinned suited _me_ much better
than anything I had tested previously.

The fact is that I am not an advanced player, and I now understand that
I can't cope with (or appreciate) a high-resistance top-of-the-line
instrument with specialized keywork. Perhaps you can. But I have
never regretted my purchase, and I have sampled a number of clarinets at
ClarinetFests and with friends since then.

_MY POINT IS:_

You should not make your decision based on other peoples' advice or
experiences. Your anatomy and nervous system and teeth and tongue size
and lung capacity (etc etc etc) are not identical to anyone else's.

You should hold an instrument in your hands and play it and listen to it
and experiment with different mouthpieces (and reeds, ligatures,
barrels) before you lay your money down. You may (or may not) decide
that you need, and can afford, a certain feature, but you need to
physically try it out first --- and not just for 5 minutes.

And all clarinets of the same model and manufacturer are NOT equal.

This is why many dealers offer to send you more than one clarinet and
they allow you to choose which one you like the best and to return the
other(s) for a small service charge. Testing 3 clarinets of the same
model and manufacturer, and returning 2 of them, is a standard
procedure. David McClune has already recommended this procedure to
you. Most of the other people on this list would give you the same
advice, except that we've all heard it so many times that we don't want
to type it one more time. (so I decided to <grin> )

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