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Ringing the Bell on the greater value?

Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-06-03 05:16

Perhaps our only universal agreement is that we have different opinions on how various strategies, from reeds, to gear, to practice and practice methods impact our play.

But that said, dollar for dollar what's worth more, the lig or the bell? I think we can pretty much agree the barrel on the whole surpasses them both.

I ask this because I saw bells being sold recently for more than some clarinets I've owned, but yet not too much bboard coverage on the subject in a bunch of years.

And it's not that I am entirely down on bells. I know they can help with intonation and the attributes of sound, particular on notes where all, or nearly all fingers are down. In fact Mike Lowenstern's certainly convinced me on how, at least for Bass clarinet, different bells affect the color of [his] sound in one of his Youtube videos: citing neither compared as "better," but rather [clearly] audibly different, and for him, appropriate in different venues and for different musical programs.

But in the Soprano clarinet world, most of our sound comes from the next available open tone hole right? Who among us as young players hasn't forgot the swab was even in the bell until we tried to produce a full fingered note? (I even remember repeating this mistake as a beginner and forgetting what caused it.)

And I "get" low F correction holes and groves: at least their intended if not actual purpose.

But is this stuff a bit of smoke and mirrors, especially relative to the prices, and especially when guys like Tom Ridenour talk of good clarinet design being able to balance the competing needs of clarinet intonation pretty well, even if he also thought low F correction could come from pulling out the bell a tad?

Sure, in a crowd as large as this some are bound to have legitimate stories of how a bell change really improved an aspect of their play, but on the large, should we be focusing much attention on this?

I did some usual warmups in Bearmann today. I had some stray notes in some finger distant playing and thought about how I, not my lig, barrel or bell was the culprit--if you get where I'm coming from.

We are ever faced with limited time and funds. I'd enjoy hearing (no pun intended) what people think of Bell shopping.

Thoughts?

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