 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: John Gibson
Date: 2003-01-31 02:25
Came across this website recently and was wondering if anyone has ever had Morrie do any clarinet "tweaking", repair, or overhauls?
He also makes some fascinating bells and barrels from exotic woods.
Ever experience those?
His website is www.backunmusical.com.
It's really worth a look. His work looks exceptional. I'd love to know what you think.
John
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Author: Birch
Date: 2003-01-31 07:52
If this is the Backun of Backun music in Vancouver, I know him. (Burnaby, actually.) He is a very intellegent fellow, and I don't like to gossip generally, [rest of sentence deleted by the Webmaster - if you don't like gossip, then why the heck do you gossip here? Not smart ....]
But what you really want to know is how good he does his job. I was in his shop a couple of months ago, and I tried out a number of barrels. The first thing you notice when you enter his shop is that he has a staggering array of very fancy equipment, including a CNC machine that will cut within a thousandth of a millimeter, or some such thing. He takes famous barrels and bells made by other people and copies them. [Do you know that? Did he tell you? Or is that "gossip", too? MC] He has an aversion to ebony and other black woods, and uses some pretty nice chunks of coccobolo, birds-eye maple, and many exotic hard woods that sounded only vaguely familiar to me. His barrels played quite nicely, but at $200 or $250 Canadian (I forget which) they didn't seem that much better than the stock barrels I use now - but then I have an impoverished sence of such things. I guess if you had a couple hundred bucks lying around, it would be nice to have one of his barrels.
As far as his tweaking of instruments, I wouldn't let him near my clarinets. We discused crack repair, and it seemed to me that he was telling me that he had the magical absolute solution to the problem of cracks, and that the answer lay in a very fancy ultra-violet climate machine that he had in the back (and a process that I know has not worked on my cracked clarinet before. [unless you had Morrie work on your clarinet and use <b>his</b> process, how do you know it wouldn't work? MC]) But he absolutely assured me that it was failsafe (and when pressed, I found out that his fee was double what my trusted repairman has charged me in the past.) I just got a bad vibe off of him that was much more than corroborated by a friend of mine [more deleted. Friend's "corroboration" when you're attempting to smear someone is less than worthless. MC].
If you want to get your clarinet tweeked or overhauled, there is a wonderful fellow in the Vancouver area who does excellent work. His name is Bob MacDonald, and I was told that he now lives in Delta (just south of Vancouver.)
[Look, you can not like someone, or think they should be doing better work, but unless they've done it to <b>you</b>, they'll be no spreading of tales here. MC]
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Author: Aaron
Date: 2003-01-31 15:08
My clarinet professor, Bil Jackson, principal Colorado Symphony Orchestra and professor at the University of Northern Colorado, found out about Morrie through a few other clarinetists around the US and Canada. I believe one of the other clarinetists is the principal of the Toronto symphony orchestra, Joaquin, who teaches with Bil at Aspen.
Anyway, Morrie's barrels are great. Bil setteled on the Cocobolo barrell with grenadilla rings. He played for us in excerpt class using his old Moennig barrell, then switching to Morrie's barrell, and the difference was amazing. I played of the barrell the next day and I was amazed at how well the clarinet played. I wouldn't say the tone was darker, of more focoused than my chaddash barrell. I would say though that it had an abundance of color, and the evenness of playing through the registers was amazing. particularly in the arpeggios in the Mozart concerto, at the end of the first movement.
I've ordered a berrell, with 3 others in the clarinet studio that have also ordered barrels.
They are 250 canadian, but that's only about 160 or so American. I think they are worth it. I'm not a person to use gimicks to make you play better. I will use something if it works and makes playiong easier, and this definately does that.
If you have anymore questions just send a personal e-mail.
Aaron
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Author: Keith Ferguson
Date: 2003-01-31 16:05
Morrie supplied me with a grenadilla barrel suited for my 1010. My objective was to try a longer barrel to address some intonation issues, and Morrie's barrel not only accomplished that but also added (to my ear) a degree of resonance that I found appealing.
Morrie's policy at that time was that a buyer could exchange one barrel for another free of charge at any time. I found him to be prompt and courteous.
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