 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2006-01-26 23:00
This week, I cried to a colleague about being without my venerable Buffet while it is in the shop having an upper joint crack repaired.
It worked, and he loaned me his arsenal of clarinets so that I could keep up with my practice drills.
He loaned me his
Yamaha CL65 A clarinet, and his
Selmer 10 Bb
My own horn is a '60 Buffet full Boehm R-16-1/2 (R13 bore, with extra keys except for the long Eb/Bb.
I used the new (now 3=months) set-up from my Buffet: a Vandoren M30 with a Vandoren V12 3-1/2 reed.
I've never spent any time with an A Clarinet, so I started with that. The bridge key mechanism has too much slack --killing the 1-1 Clarion Bb, so I layered fragments of adhesive tape in the gap.
The Yamaha A is a sweet horn. One of its endearing qualities is the ease with which it delivers the altissimo. Wonderful. It is, however, "quiet." I can't get the fffs out of it like I can on my Buffet.
The Selmer, too, is a great horn, but it has the same awkwardness in the altissimo as my Buffet. It feels awfully familiar, very similar to the Buffet, but there are many subtle differences. After several days of playing on this Selmer, I found myself wanting to phrase passages differently.
As this is my first experience with a wealth of good instruments, I'm left wondering how one ever goes into a room with 15 clarinets and comes out with a preferred instrument. In this case, the Selmer might come home with me (depending on the competition), but I'd probably leave the otherwise sweet Yamaha because of its inability to play-out.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-01-27 12:35
I've found the pro Yamahas that I've tried very stuffy, not sure why but their wooden clarinets haven't done much to win me over, sweet toned though they are. But I do like the old plastic 24 and 26II models.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2006-01-27 14:30
I haven't yet analyzed it yet but "there's just something" about Yamaha barrels that's different
Bob Draznik
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