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The Upgrader's Tale (long post)

Author: David Peacham
Date: 2004-01-12 11:43

I announced in early December that I had bought “the last clarinet I shall ever buy”, and now all I had to do was learn to play it. I promised to post again in a few weeks to say how I am getting on.

The purpose of this (long) post isn’t to ask for help, or to be told that I’ve gone about it all the wrong way. Rather, it is to give just one player’s perspective on the process of upgrading from a student instrument. I hope this will prove useful to others thinking of taking this step. With all the discussion on the board about “is Leblanc better than Selmer?” and “in what way is the R13-Prestige different from the R13?” I found it difficult to get answers to the more fundamental questions like “what is so great about pro clarinets?” and “am I ready to upgrade?”

I have played the clarinet since April 2001. I have some experience of other instruments. I am not a talented musician. I practice at least an hour, often more, pretty well every day. I do not have a teacher at present. My musical tastes are 99% classical. I can easily afford any instrument on the market, but have no wish to waste money and no need to impress others by my choice.

My student instrument is a Yamaha YCL26, with a 5RVL/13/88 mouthpiece. I generally use Vandoren traditional #3 reeds held on with an Optimum ligature. I try to use every reed in the box.

As recounted in the earlier thread, I went to a large specialist retailer and played examples of each of the Big Four: R13, RC, CSV, Odyssee, Concerto, Opus II and an intermediate-level Leblanc.

The immediate problem I had was that they all played out of tune. My Yamaha has always tended to sharpness, and I pull the barrel out 1 or 2 mm. With their barrels pushed right in, these instruments were all flat, and the registers were out of tune with each other. Even allowing for some warm-up time, something seemed very wrong.

It was explained to me that the culprit was my 13 series mouthpiece. Why this mouthpiece would not work even on the R13 I am not at all sure. It works fine on my YCL26. This put paid to my intention to play test all the instruments on a familiar mouthpiece. I was offered a small selection of mouthpieces. I selected the one that seemed to play best in tune, and used it for the play test. It was not a Vandoren: I am not going to say what it was because I don’t want what I shall say later to be taken as a criticism of this brand of mouthpiece.

I played all the instruments with the new mouthpiece. There was no moment of blinding revelation: THIS IS THE ONE! None of them seemed as easy to play as my student Yamaha. Some felt better in the hand than others. Some were easier to keep in tune than others.

At this point I could have told the shop “Thank you very much, but I don’t think I’m yet good enough to appreciate these fine clarinets. I shall carry on practising my Yamaha for another year, then come and see you again.” I had already warned them that I might do exactly that. I decided not to; I decided to make the purchase. I chose the Concerto.

Why did I go ahead? Because I wanted to stop blaming the instrument. So long as you play on a student instrument, you fall into the trap of thinking “My tone is bad because I’m playing on plastic, my intonation is bad because this thing is made by a machine.” I wanted to take away this excuse. I wanted to know that I was playing an instrument that no pro would be ashamed of (Buffet mafia excepted) and that all the faults were my own. Of course, this is not quite true. No instrument is perfect. I did not play twelve Concertos and pick the best. My instrument will have defects, that is for sure. But the odds are that it is fundamentally a significantly better instrument than my student Yamaha.

I played the Concerto an hour a day for a week. I was told it was okay to play as much as I wanted so long as I oiled it every two days and swabbed it every few minutes while playing. (Let’s not turn this into a thread on oiling!) Frankly, I struggled. I could not find a new reed that worked on the mouthpiece. #3 were hopelessly stuffy, #2.5 too difficult to keep in tune. A few reeds that had seen a lot of use, including the one I’d play-tested with, worked okay, but it was hard work even with those. This was not encouraging.

I went back to the retailer, and was given another batch of mouthpieces to try. I settled on one of the same design that I had used for the first week, which seemed to play a good deal more easily than its supposed twin. Why did I not change entirely? Because the intonation was good, and the tone was good if I put enough effort in. I reasoned that my previous set-up had made it too easy to play in a mediocre fashion. If I wanted to sound better, I would just have to work harder.

I stayed with this second mouthpiece until last week. But the same problems persisted. It would sound good if I really worked at it. Given a difficult piece, I was lost. I just could not drive enough air at enough pressure while moving my fingers and tongue quickly.

I now have an M15. It plays in tune. It sounds good: rather brighter than I would really like, but acceptable. A V12 #3.5 gives me a darker sound, but I lose precision of articulation.

It sounds significantly better than the Yamaha. Still recognisably the same player with the same faults, but the sound is cleaner, purer. The intonation has improved on some notes that always caused me problems.

Has it been worthwhile? In terms of the effort required, yes. It has made me think a lot more about how I play and how I sound. In terms of the expenditure, I reason that the Concerto should last me forty years so that’s 60p a week or roughly what I spend on reeds.

Would I say that there’s a huge difference between the instruments, or that a pro instrument is a necessity? No. I’m sure a good player could sound just fine on either of them. I’m sure a beginner would sound just awful on either. At my level, the Concerto does sound better and feel better, but not hugely better. If I play the Concerto for an hour and then the Yamaha for two minutes, the Yamaha sounds crude. If I keep on playing the Yamaha, its sound improves. Whether that is me adjusting to it, or me getting used to the sound, I cannot say.

I hope others who are thinking of upgrading – or struggling after upgrading - will read this and find it helpful. Please don’t take it as advice: I am not suggesting that I went about it “the right way”.

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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.

To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.

Post Edited (2004-01-12 11:54)

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