Klarinet Archive - Posting 000206.txt from 2007/07

From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Fernando_Jos=E9_Silveira?= <fernandounirio@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Clarinet Manufacture - Differences between French and German - Wood is a "Living" Material
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:22:22 -0400

Hi Tom.
Very intersting point of view!
If you compare german with "french" makers you will have the answers you
point down.
But now you have choice: there are small makers that produce french
clarinets and they work quite similar with those german makers you speak.

Best

Fernando Silveira
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
----- Original Message -----
From: <Tom.Henson@-----.com>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 5:05 PM
Subject: [kl] Clarinet Manufacture - Differences between French and German -
Wood is a "Living" Material

I have talked with a couple of local clarinet professors here in Houston on
the subject of breaking in a new clarinet and they both told me that some
professionals they worked with prefer to play on only newer clarinets
because the older they get, the less resistance they have. I don't think it
was a question at all of "blow out", a controversial subject which has been
discussed here before. It was more that they felt a clarinet looses some of
the resistance that you have when it is new and the wood is not yet fully
broken in. They actually preferred this "new" resistance to a clarinet that
was well broken in. This may be what Harold Wright had in mind when he made
the statement about a clarinet only lasting professionally for 10-12 years,
but it would be speculation on my part to say this is what he meant for sure
since he is no longer with us.

To me, this is an interesting subject to discuss, but little real scientific
data may be available to back up any theories. I think it would be
interesting from a scientific point of view to take a new wooden clarinet
and measure the bore dimensions. Then, as the clarinet is played in over the
course of a couple of years, to periodically go back and take measurements
again. At least this would document how the wood changes over time and how
this affects the bore dimensions and such. I'm not sure how one would
scientifically interpret this type of data, as I think it would get
subjective from that point on as it relates to how the sound has or has not
changed. At least changes in tuning could be documented based upon real
measurements.

I do think that most people accept that wood is a "living" material in that
it does change (expand and contract) and move depending on the environment
it is subjected to. A synthetic material, by nature, should not, and thus I
have heard it referred to as a "dead" material. It is this "elasticity" that
natural wood has then that makes it different from a synthetic material.
Even then, a synthetic material may have some elasticity, but it would most
likely me much less than wood.

Another benefit of doing this type of testing would be to show how different
materials react differently over the course of time. It is because of these
natural properties of wood, as I was told by a leading acoustician, that he
would not recommend using a clarinet made of a synthetic or "greenline" type
material as the main clarinet of a professional. He did agree that this type
of clarinet would be great for outdoor use or under harsh conditions, but
not as the primary clarinet for indoor use. He simply felt, based upon his
experience, that wood was superior in response and sound. While I did not
ask for imperial scientific evidence of this, I do respect that this person
is in a position to have made sound opinions based upon very real, valid
experience gained actually making clarinets for a living.

I think it is also interesting to see how the manufacturing methods of the
French makers vs. the German makers differ and why that is relevant to this
topic of how long a clarinet will last. Let me explain.

I currently play on a set of Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm clarinets, and for me,
the process of changing to these instruments was much more involved that
just picking them up and playing on them. Besides the fact that I am now
using a German mouthpiece with German reeds, the way that most German
clarinets are made is different than the top 3 French manufacturers. Why
does that matter and how is it relevant to this discussion? Read on.

The German mindset is, I believe, to make products that typically last
longer or retain their value longer through the way they are designed and
manufactured, even to the materials used. When I lived in Germany back in
the mid 1970's, it was not unusual for people to finance a car for 7-10
years. It was an accepted fact that most German made cars would easily last
this long if they were properly cared for. This was not so of the American
made cars of that time. The mindset was, and still is to this day, that the
car would last a long time and was not an item that you threw away every 3-4
years simply because something new came out. This mindset can also be found
in the way that the German handmade clarinets are manufactured today.

To start with, they age the wood much longer than the French manufacturers
do. I was told that this is between 12-15 years on average. A lot of effort
is made by them to insure that the wood used is as stable as they can
possibly have. They are very patient when it comes to the wood since they
consider this the single most important element in a clarinet. Like most
manufacturers, they pre-drill the blanks and then age them. I was told that
they store the blanks in wooden crates that are open on the top and sides so
air can circulate and each year the wood is rotated to a different place in
their shop to make sure that they are as acclimatized as best they can be.

Each year, the wood that is ready to be used is brought down to the shop
floor. The wood is then tap tested for resonance qualities and then sorted
by grade. The wood with the highest sound resonance is set aside for making
only the top of the line clarinets and I have seen the crates marked as
such. The entire supply of wood for the year is in that batch and when they
run out, they stop making clarinets for that year. I am sure that they have
projections based upon previous years of how many clarinets they expect to
make, but it would be a fraction of what Buffet makes in a single month I
would guess.

During the manufacture process, they use a time table as to how fast the
wood is worked. The wooden blanks go through different stages of manufacture
and then are "rested" for a few days until the next step is performed. They
claim that this helps relieve the stress of working the wood and allows the
wood time to go back to it's natural shape before working it again. All
machining and drilling steps are performed when the wood is at the relaxed
state, like a rubber band that is at rest. They do not want to work the wood
when it is under stress or stretched out like a rubber band, as the wood
once you finish working it, will want to go back to it's relaxed state. Your
exact dimensions you just machined will then change and be off to some
degree.

This is certainly not how the top 3 French manufacturers make a clarinet, as
they are much more mass produced. Once a clarinet is put into production,
they do not stop working it until the clarinet is finished a few days (or
hours) later. The clarinet may then sit on a shelf somewhere for a few weeks
or months before it is sold. This would explain, in my opinion, why you can
play many French clarinets side by side and each one is different to some
degree. In this age of CNC machinery and keywork that is very consistent
from one key to the next, it is the wood that is the deciding factor why one
clarinet plays differently than another. Assuming, of course, that the
clarinet was not made using dull machine tools and/or had poor assembly.

German clarinets are much more consistent as a finished product, but they
still each have a personality all their own. No two pieces of wood are the
same and no two pieces of wood will machine/react in the exact same way
either. In some respects, I think that the French makers will acknowledge
this statement as a positive thing. With so many small differences in the
way their clarinets play, there is always something that is just right for
everyone, assuming that you try enough to find the "right" one for you. With
German clarinets, you place the order, wait until it is made, and then
accept it as the best that they can make and go from there. It is you who
then must adjust to the clarinet and not the other way around. Another basic
difference between the French and German way of making a clarinet in my
opinion. It's like the mother who buys clothes for the growing child and it
doesn't fit at first. The mother tells the child that they will "grow" into
it. This is so very true of a German clarinet.

After Wurlitzer has finished working the wooden blanks, and before the
clarinet goes through the final set up and tuning, they coat the entire
inside bore, including all tone holes and their facings, along with all the
end grain of the joints with lacquer. Basically, they coat any part that has
been machined or drilled. Any surface that has been touched and changed and
thus has exposed grain. The outside of the body is stained and then hand
polished to a mirror finish which seals the grain as well. The wood at this
point is fairly waterproof.

The break-in process for a Wurlitzer clarinet can take up to 3 years,
depending on how much you play on it. Once the lacquer in the bore is worn
down to the point of the natural wood being exposed and the grain starting
to raise, you are supposed to send it back to the factory where they rebore
it with the final dimensions and then re-tune it. Because all the tone hole
chimneys are synthetic delrin plugs that are glued into the body, they even
replace them if necessary for perfect tuning. The bore is also polished to a
mirror finish at this time to seal the wood. It is because of this effort
that they go to that a Wurlitzer clarinet, or most of the high end German
clarinets, should last a lifetime or more. It is unheard of to change
clarinets every 10 years or so in Germany because of this. They see the way
a French clarinet is manufactured as being "not finished" and not just the
way the keywork is setup, but the way the wood is processed. It is no wonder
that they are so expensive, but if you only have to buy one set of clarinets
during your lifetime the cost is not so bad.

Because of all the lacquer in the bore and tone holes, breaking in a German
clarinet is not only more time consuming, it plays with more resistance
until that first overhaul is performed and the clarinet is rebored. Not
something for the weak of breath. It takes more patience and thus why a
person transitioning from a French clarinet may get frustrated with the
process. I was once told by a clarinet professor who has played on both
French and German clarinets that a French clarinet is designed and
manufactured to play it's best when your first take it out of the case. He
claimed that most French clarinets actually degrade sound wise as they
continually break in over the course of many years as opposed to a German
made clarinet which is designed to take years of breaking in before it plays
at it's best. While I am not trying to validate that statement, I can
understand why they would say something like that given the fundamentally
different ways that the French and Germans approach manufacturing clarinets,
and woodwinds for that matter. Heckle bassoons also come to mind as having a
very similar type of manufacturing process and mindset. I did have the
pleasure of visiting their workshop some years back, but they refused to
take anyone onto the shop floor and said it was because of trade secrets
that they did not allow anyone back there.

Now, getting back to Harold Wright and his comment that his playing was a
combination of French and German playing. Playing style not withstanding,
keep in mind that he played on Moennig Buffet clarinets. This would have
meant that his clarinets were anything than what was produced by the Buffet
factory. Moennig only used the Buffet R-13 as a starting point and made many
extensive modifications. Some of which have been documented in the Klarinet
archives and is very interesting to read. Also keep in mind that Hans
Moennig was trained as a woodwind maker in Germany. I have a feeling that
Herr Moennig put more German design into those French Buffet's than people
give him credit for.

No wonder Robert Marcellus also swore by his Moennig clarinets. I have a
close friend that studied under Marcellus back in the 60's at the Cleveland
Institute during a time when Marcellus was still playing professionally. He
told me that his conversations with Marcellus would invariable come back to
the same discussion. Marcellus had heard a recording of a German clarinetist
whom he did not know, but whom he described as having a very dark sound, and
that he was so haunted with that sound that it drove him to frustration. He
claimed it was because of his quest to reproduce this sound that it lead him
to Moennig and Kaspar. Moennig also created his famous barrel because of
Marcellus' desire for something more from his French Buffet's. Even then, my
friend said that he confided that he still felt somewhat frustrated in that
he pushed the boundaries sound wise and yet still felt limited. It was this
frustration that always lead him back to Moennig and why he and Moennig did
so much experimenting on the R-13. The last piece of the puzzle for
Marcellus was the Morre reeds. They had a thicker blank and were cut more in
the tradition of a German reed than a French one at that time. You can also
thank Marcellus, as well as a few others, who when Morre stopped making
reeds, went to Vandoren to ask them to produce something similar.

Tom Henson

-----Original Message-----
From: Juan Francisco Vicente Becerro [mailto:juanfran2@-----.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 10:10 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] Harold Wright Radio Interview

I remember Dudley Moore interviewing Richard Stoltzman. I can't remember
it in detail, and it was dubbed (Spanish), so maybe I'm loosing something
in the translation, but after some question like "What can you do with a
clarinet after some years" -can't remember the number of years, but I think
it was quite less than 10-, Stoltzman answered "A lamp base".

Juanfran

Tom.Henson@-----.com escribió:
> Some of his comments, like the one about a clarinet only lasting about
> 10-12 years before it looses it sound, I found quite interesting. He
> claims that he changed clarinets every 10 years.
>
>

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