 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Michael E. Shultz
Date: 2021-06-12 14:42
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg3BFD2OULs
43 minutes long. The last 6 minutes are missing from this documentary narrated by Sir David Attenborough. It includes an interview and clarinet playing by Mr. Acker Bilk.
I wish they had discussed the impact of the CITES regulations on the use of mpingo.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2021-06-13 03:34
Thank you for sharing Michael.
Here's where I respectively take issue:
https://youtu.be/Wg3BFD2OULs?t=544
"...here's a marvelous material, this wonderful black wood, which has proved to be the ideal material, for making woodwind instruments, particularly clarinets, and it is for that reason, for those unique tonal qualities...."
hogwash....
I'm not saying that this wood doesn't make clarinets with wonderful tonal qualities, what I am saying is that it's not the wood, and that other materials can do just as fine a job, even better given their resistance to cracking, along with dimensional stability, and that this wood wasn't originally chosen for such tonal qualities as much as it was chosen for manufacturing price (read: less breakage.)
https://www.ridenourclarinetproducts.com/the-grenadilla-myth.html
Sure. Tom Ridenour has skin in the game of selling rubber clarinets, but the story is true. Many clarinet makers/players think other woods have better qualities than grenadilla...there's just machining and stability issues with them, like boxwood.
here's the dirty dark secret....that plastic clarinet that was our first one was lousy not for its base material but its lack of craftsmanship in assembly.
but if high end clarinet makers start making clarinets out of plastic, ones as devoted to craftsmanship as their wood counterparts, and which will sound just as good, how will they charge what they do?
Answer: fudge it. Mix epoxy with grenadilla shavings and call it a Greenline clarinet (Buffet's answer.) What on earth magic properties does anyone think grenadilla has--and if so--that maintains such magic in wood shavings form?
No joke...back in the days of strictly wood clarinets, Buffet used the shavings in their factory to generate heat in winter.
And Backun, that Alpha clarinet, oh no...it's not plastic, its an...echem "ideal blend of synthetic material."
https://backunmusical.com/collections/student-clarinets/products/alpha?variant=803371959
The truth---and I have no horse in this race, plastic and rubber would probably make better clarinets even if grenadilla wasn't in short supply.
Full disclosure, I own grenadilla and rubber clarinets.
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Author: LFabian
Date: 2021-06-13 11:59
The Alpha is stable in both hot and cold weather. Sounds the same. Using Armor All low gloss. With a few tweaks, it is a serious instrument.
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Author: Michael E. Shultz
Date: 2021-06-13 16:19
You can watch the missing ending here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r04Bwup_fV0
or the entire program here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUcW1dRH2XQ
This program was produced in 1992, so prior to the CITES regulations. As I just found out, the CITES regulations were updated at the end of 2019 to exclude musical instruments:
https://www.flutes.com/cites-regulations-of-wooden-instruments-update/
As far as whether material affects clarinet sound, the people who say it does not have some compelling arguments & research. I do know that my Buffet Festival Greenline sounds better than the Grenadilla Evette that I played for a bit in high school.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
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The Clarinet Pages
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