Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2004-09-17 20:01
My inclination was always in the direction of the Selmer USA horn. Cheap enough, well cased to protect against damage, and an instrument with (due to prolonged exposure to the spawn of George Bundy) I was already amply familiar. Of the last three that I talked into purchase of a student level horn, two were Selmer USAs and one was a Yamaha. From what I recall, all had the same basic register key setup, and that's the main "branding" advantage that I see but only in the "pro style" horns.
(I positively hated the pro-level LeBlancs that I've played in the past. I am given to understand that their top end horns now use a standard double register key instead of the "two holes on the body" blasphemy that was once the rule. Whoever came up with _that_ design for a "professional" instrument ought to be drawn and quartered...or, worse yet, be forced to play the alto clarinet for the rest of their life. True, there was a nifty "fork" Eb/Ab mechanism that helped with the little finger problems (but added far more complexity to the horn than an articulated G# ever would have), but only at the expense of a stuffy break and atrocious throat Bb.
To be frank, at that level the style and structure of the horn isn't half as important as the fact that it's one that is kept sealed up. Get them used to how a properly set up horn works, then move them on to the expensive stuff if they are going on to college (or start to work pro).
Some of the band bass clarinets to which I have been exposed over the years were complete wrecks, yet you can hardly blame the directors for not wanting to keep them in repair. A good knock to any of the large keys on any clarinet or sax can lead to Squeakytown, and with a large clarinet (where working over the break involves the lowest tone holes on the horn, unlike on a sax) it doesn't take much. Multiply that by six or eight alto and bass clarinets, a bassoon or two and a baritone saxophone, and you're looking at a busted repair budget.
But, keep them sealed up (by keeping them in the hands of one player and one player alone) and your budding bass clarinet player will soon be able to negotiate soprano clarinet literature with facility and ease.
And, despite my bias against the alto clarinet, I have to shamefully admit that the first monetary compensation I was ever given was for performing on same. The Selmer Company put together a clarinet choir for a band director's meeting back in the early 1960's, and I and my friend Lynn Biggings were tapped at the last minute to fill the two alto clarinet positions.
We each got a double sawbuck for our trouble, the opportunity to play on top of the line Selmer instruments (that were correctly regulated, by the way) plus we got to keep the mouthpiece and ligature we were using...not bad for the time and place. All that and a rubber chicken meal, all for playing some pseudo viola parts in a couple of transcriptions plus some concert band fluff with a name like "Blaze of Glory".
(The two bass holes in the group were filled by a couple of handless hacks from some school in North Saint Louis County. It was embarrassing to hear them squeak their way through the music, but what can you do? In addition to the above compensation, I also managed to "score" three bass clarinet mouthpieces in the bargain, thanks to a clinician who was impressed by my bass playing skills that he heard later that evening. He also ensured that I got tapped for bass clarinet the next year. (Lynn couldn't make it as by that time she was pregnant, if my memory serves me well.) I still use the D facing mouthpiece he gave me for jazz purposes to this very day...a rare mouthpiece in the world of C* and C**s.)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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