 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bruce
Date: 2003-02-12 05:40
Back a couple of months ago we were looking for a new clarinet for my daughter Allison. With help from several of you, we finally found a new R13. Like others, we can strongly recommend Lisa at IMS. She did such a great job that we had to keep two of the clarinets we auditioned. Allison's mom plays too.
Anyway, I promised / threatened to post some thoughts after this process was done and I'm going to follow through on that.
The Local Store Experience:
We started this entire thing by visiting nearly all the major music stores within a reasonable distance of where we live. Allison and her mom played all of the professional grade clarinets that they had at all of these stores at the times that we went. We did revisit some of the stores to retry clarinets after they were repaired and check out some new arrivals. FYI, all of these are very reputable music stores. They're places we have and will continue to do business with.
With few exceptions, all of the clarinets were not really playable. Many had one or more keys that stuck. These were often new clarinets, still in plastic in the case. Early on in the process we didn't recognize these leaks very well. It was obvious when a key was stuck fully open. It's much harder to diagnose a key that's not quite closed.
We found that some of the clarinets that were "new" (not used) were really the model from a couple of years back. They apparently were sitting in stock for a while. Since it's very dry where we live, that might be a concern. We found these some of these clarinets had loose tenon rings. It's not clear that all of that means anything by itself.
It was extremely helpful to have a mom that plays clarinet come along for these instrument auditions. Someone to help verify that "it's not quite right" was a big help. I'd hate to think how stressful it would be to have a young adult only go with parents that didn't have a clue (like me).
A couple of places suggested that if we wanted to buy a particular clarinet they would get it fully tuned up so that things were working right. That seemed like that was a bit of a "Catch-22" since we sort of needed it tuned up to see if we wanted to buy it.
The thing that was really great about the local experience was that we got to touch the clarinets and compare the relative sounds of them. Allison had to pick out the notes the worked on each one but we were able to work with that sort of OK. It just took some real effort.
The Internet Experience:
We really didn't get the full Internet experience ourselves. We spent so much time in the local store experience that we had quite a bit of second hand coaching on the Internet story. However, what we heard is that you have three choices: recommended, legitimate or risky.
The risky Internet approach seems to be to get real creative about sources. The key is to focus on price, price or other specific factors. If you do that, you get just about as much excitement as you ask for. If you go for this, it seems a bit of a gamble. Personally, I think of gambling as entertainment. The value is to just see what happens. You should set your expectations so that you're happy even if you get nothing useful (which just might be a likely scenario).
The legitimate approach seems to be to stick to companies that have good customer feedback data, most of all, the right Internet approval seals and have been around for a while. These places seem to get discussed on this board every so often. There's little doubt that these suppliers will provide exactly what's promised. The price will also be quite good. The worry might be that new clarinets out of the case may need to be tuned up to play right. This could be a duplicate of our local experience. If that's the situation, will that be an issue through the mail? BTW, I honestly don't know and would love to hear that point discussed more on this board.
The recommended approach seems to be to stick to a smaller set of companies that are frequently discussed and recommended on this board. I'm confident that it will cost a bit more but at least our experience was very good. It seems like others have had the same sort result with these recommended folks.
A new approach:
The local stores are clearly feeling threatened by the online stores. That's true for both independents and chains. They see this all as a price war. If it really is a price war, they've already lost. They will never handle the volume of the online folks.
I wonder if there's a new potential approach. When we started shopping, we didn't know that Allison would get an R13. This board provided a lot of help and some of you have sent several personal messages. Some folks in local stores have been really helpful too in suggesting things. All of this customized help was a very valuable service.
Pictures on the Internet are nice but you have to try these things out. Maybe I should try calling IMS and tell them I have no idea what brand or model I want. "I'm not sure, just send me a bunch to try." What do you all think? Would they be amused?
Given the overhead and small volumes at the local stores, these high-end instruments have to be as much of a minus as plus. Why not do a service front-end for online sourcing? Specifically, have a demo clarinet from each brand or more if possible. Then, charge a brokering service or mark-up for consulting on the sale of the online stuff. They could even have stuff sent into the store for auditions.
If this all sounds too incredible to be practical, I like to think of the cost of the time we've spent in this quest over the past few months. We're probably way more computer savvy than most folks. I'd like to think that having a mom that has played clarinet for many years and several other clarinet friends helped provide a pretty good basis for this entire process too. Even so, it would have been cheap to pay an extra $300 (USD) for the consulting time spent.
I'm hoping to stir up some thinking about local business and Internet business collaboration on musical instruments. Instead of shutting the local stores down maybe they could work together. What do you think? We need the local stores to keep doing some of the great stuff they do.
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Author: Bob
Date: 2003-02-12 11:03
There are many "local stores" that also sell via eBay which, I assume, you group under Internet. I agree with your opinion that a novice would have a difficult time making an optimum selection without some experienced assistance. Many clarinetists spend a lifetime searching for the ultimate horn and some find it.
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2003-02-12 12:00
What were the 'Back stock' models?
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Author: msroboto
Date: 2003-02-12 13:08
I shopped around and bought my R-13 from a local shop price was right and the service was great. They have some ties to the local University and have the clarinets play tested and adjusted before WE try them out.
That's not to say I didn't have a sticky key but it was within reason and they fixed it no problem.
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Author: Larry Garges
Date: 2003-02-12 23:34
It is well worth it, in my opinion, to pay the student's private clarinet instructor or, lacking that, a professional clarinetist to help in the selection process. I play and teach woodwinds and still like to have a colleague with me when trying new equipment, for another set of ears if nothing else. Its very difficult to tell how well your sound is projecting in an unfamiliar acoustic.
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Author: Bruce
Date: 2003-02-13 09:32
> What were the 'Back stock' models?
We ran into a Leblanc Concerto where the case lining color and other details did not match later Leblanc Concertos. I'm assuming there was some stock / model / year change there.
After also seeing a really loose tenon ring ring on that clarinet we got a little more alert for details. We found a later Yamaha YCL-SE that also didn't seem to be completely new.
We were not 100% convinced on some others but those were the ones we thought were most likely not current.
This seemed to be more associated with privately owned shops. The chains tended to have more of the new clarinets still wrapped in plastic with keys that stick.
I would fully support bringing the private instructor. Allison is between instructors right now. We did include her previous instructor in the process.
A scary thing that I heard of in our search was a professional clarinet on hold at a store that was to be a surprise Christmas present. I hope not too much of a surprise!
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Author: Rick
Date: 2003-02-13 15:16
Back in November, I went through much the same without the benefit of any local stores stocking instruments I was interested in. So my only recourse, was to travel or go with one of the major mail order stores. I choose the latter.
I've said before that I think there is a potential cottage industry for people who live near one of these major suppliers to sell their services in picking out an instrument. I'd pay the money to get an instrument that was acceptable, even if not perfect out of the box. Also, based on my experience, the claims of play testing are either fabricated or the person doing the playing needs lessons. Here is a short list of issues with my new play tested horn.
Lower section had a leak
One cup was double padded
F key was so low, it was unusable
The A G# keys were badly out of adjustment and the A key was set too low.
C# key wasn't properly closing when used.
The fixes cost me $50 and time. I got lucky though on the tone and since everything else was a matter of adjustment, I kept the horn.
Previous to that I had recieved another clarinet, from a different dealer that was both out of adjustment, worse than the one I kept and didn't sound nice either. In that case, I just sent it back and got a complete refund, including shipping both ways. The person I talked with at the first store sounded a bit fluxed that they had sent out an instrument with loose tenions, a pad that had fallen off in the case and a host of other issues while claiming that they had play tested it. He was also reluctant to issue a refund including shipping both ways until I mentioned something about the FTC and claims of play testing. I was polite, but I wasn't going to lose any money because of it.
So my take on the process is this, order the horn you want, when you get it check the tone and if that is ok, then just figure that getting it adjusted is going to be part of the deal.
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Author: Bruce
Date: 2003-02-15 09:38
Rick, I'm really curious about your online experience. Would you say that you used one of the stores frequently recommended on this board (for example, IMS and WW&BW)?
The reason I ask is that we had three clarinets sent out to try. All three played great. If we had found any one of these locally, we would have been done at that time. We would have been thrilled with any of them.
As it was, we auditioned them over several days with everyone doing blind listening. One of the three seemed consistently least favorite to folks. We were after a darker sound but that one was a bit too much so. The other two were really close. The only people that had a strong preference toward one or the other were Mom and daughter. They each liked different ones. Since both play and they do duets sometimes, the problem was solved.
It's only been a couple of weeks but both are still playing great.
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