 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: DAVE
Date: 2006-07-11 22:56
Did anyone catch the little blurb in the Union paper this month about approximately 75 years ago Selmer crafted a clarinet to be played by a soldier who lost a hand but after making the clarinet they could not find him. I don't have the clipping here, but that's my best recollection.
Anyone familiar with this story? I would LOVE to see that clarinet! By the way, is there someone at Selmer that is accessible to customers like Francois Kloc of Buffet?
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-07-12 02:55
I believe he's gone back to France after spending the last few years in the US as Selmer's rep, but Jean-Francois Bescond is very accessible and friendly (as well as a very fine player) -- I'd bet that Ben Redwine has contact information for him.
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Author: redwine
Date: 2006-07-12 12:38
Hello,
Jean-Francois does indeed travel back to Paris on July 14th (Bastille Day!) after spending 3 years here in the US. We will miss him greatly! I'll see him today for the last time (until I travel to Paris!!!). I'll shoot a couple of e-mails to my contacts at Selmer to see if they know anything about this clarinet.
Ben Redwine, DMA
owner, RJ Music Group
Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America
Selmer Paris artist
www.rjmusicgroup.com
www.redwinejazz.com
www.reedwizard.com
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2006-07-12 13:10
Velly interesting, will try to find my recent "Musicians" and read it. Was there a patent #, even a French pat, on it?, I'd like to see if it can be found for our recording here. Tks, Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-07-12 13:47
Particularly after the start of World War I, the first war where artillery played a major (some might say pivotal) role, there were far more injuries where the injured survived but lost a limb due to the relatively primitive military medical facilities and procedures of the time. For a brief window of opportunity, there was some call for one handed instruments such as those discussed above.
In "the old days", artillery was very much a direct contact weapon. Aiming at a distance was a black art, and most guns were fired to cause close in damage to large formations of troops. Shells were relatively rare, and most injuries from artillery were caused by the impact of a cannon ball on a file of troops in the tight formations of the day. So, you either got wacked (and wacked good), or you didn't get hurt at all from an artillery projectile.
Modern gunnery and propellants changed all of that in the late 1800's. Now a gun could throw an explosive projectile, filled with a high brissiance filler like the new TNT, a long way, and actually be expected to hit the target at which it was aimed. War changed in character, and now the King of Battle (artillery) became the great killing and maiming agent, even beyond the new technology machine guns. The high explosive shells shattered into relatively large fragments upon detonation, and the large pieces of shell would often (literally) tear off feet and hands (and heads, if that's what the happened to hit).
Along with this came better medical technology. Even without antibiotics, better sanitation and sterilization ensured that a higher percentage of the wounded with serious injuries would survive the war. At that point as well, there were more adaptations made by "modern science" to provide the amputees with appliances that were more than a wooden peg or a hook.
Post World War I, there were a number of efforts made to provide "one handed" musical instruments, mostly by French manufacturers for artists who had suffered through the hell of France's war effort (far more bloody than most of the the other combatants in that horrid war) and lost a limb in the process. There were (I recall) clarinets and flutes made to allow for one handed play, and there were at least two piano pieces specially composed to be played by one hand, these for a pianist (or pianists) who had lost a hand in the conflict. An early effort at accommodation for physical disability, long before the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) was ever considered.
Never the less, these were accommodations, not the norm, and the "innovations" generally died when the reason for their existence passed from the scene. So they remain, forgotten musical compositions and one-off instruments that gradually became historic curiosities.
Once World War II came along, changes in both weaponry (new artillery went for a cloud of small fragments rather than a dozen large fragments), medical science (plastic surgery first came into its own during the second world conflict) and a less-wide casting of the conscription net (no nation save the Soviet Union and Japan was as indiscriminate in the drafting of "everybody" as nations were in the First World War) combined to lessen the impact of the war on musicians (as a class) and musician's bodies.
Nowadays, we see a lot of former military personnel with limbs blown off or mangled, this being due to exposure to huge expedient mines (not normal in "classic" warfare, which is not an affair of ambushes for the most part) meant to defeat armored vehicles. While the soldier survives (due to protection of the body core with body armor far superior to what I wore in the RVN era), unprotected limbs are not so lucky. However, I would imagine that there are few classical (in the sense of that's how they made their living prior to their military service) musicians being exposed in the first place (no draft), so there probably won't be the same demand that arose post-World War I.
In either The Clarinet or The Saxophone Journal a few issues back, I recall an article about a one-handed saxophone that had been developed at no little expense for two players (both with non-military handicaps) somewhere here in the United States. In that case, the technician apparently did it all from scratch, not relying on prior efforts. But, such attempts are going to remain rare, simply due to the very limited demand.
There was one other stream of invention that fed this tendency. During the golden days of vaudeville, "acts" with some unique feature were in constant demand. One type of act particularly beloved by the theater circuits was that of the "one man band". (Vaudeville act pay was based in large part on number of members in the act; an act made up of only one performer equaled a bargain.)
To accommodate this group, there were a number of one handed saxophones (for each hand) made. But, they were limited instruments (not omnitonique like a Boehm horn, but rather based upon playing simple tunes without many accidentals) and would not be considered to be the equivalent of a "normal" musical instrument.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-07-12 14:34
I have an old Selmer-Paris "Brevettes S.G.D.G." clarinet which I believe dates from the 1920s, which had been modified some time in the past to accommodate a player with a missing (or foreshortened) r.h. middle finger -- it had an interesting mechanism custom-fabricated to operate that key using the index finger instead. I wonder if that was the result of a WWI injury also?
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2006-07-12 15:09
My high school orch. teacher had a severed median nerve in right arm alledgedly from crashing through plate glass window while playing basketball. This killed his clarinet career.
He took up French horn and studied with Mason Jones (former princ. horn with Philly orch).
Later, Moenning devised some modifications that let him return to clarinet to some extent.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: DAVE
Date: 2006-07-12 17:21
David S.:
Can you post a pic of that clarinet you described?
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-07-12 17:31
DAVE,
Unfortunately that clarinet is in storage and not easy for me to get to, but more importantly, I've removed the extra mechanisms and reverted the clarinet to standard keywork. I kept the custom mechanism pieces but they're not much to look at without being installed on the instrument. Sorry!
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-07-12 22:47
One other thing to keep in mind is that it was far more common (in the days before anti-biotics) to lose body parts following injuries, this because of secondary infection. I recall several of my parent's friends who lost fingers and toes during the days of their youth, and one uncle lost an arm in an industrial accident (it didn't keep him from being drafted and serving stateside, however).
everything changed post-penicillin, of course. Now, stuff like President Coolidge's son dying from an infected blister contracted while playing tennis is a thing of the past.
I once replaced a baritone player who had a badly broken and poorly set middle finger (due to a tragic beer barrel injury while working in the old Falstaff brewery in Galveston TX). He had real troubles sealing the middle ring chimney. Observing his obvious troubles with the problem, I told him about the plateau horns available from Leblanc, and he straightaway ordered one. His wife had to sell it following his death a few days later...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: Cuisleannach
Date: 2006-07-13 03:15
And then there are the injuries resulting from music itself. According to one story, Jean-Baptisite Lully impaled himself in the foot with the huge spike used (against the floor, in those days) to conduct musicians. He caught an infection and died. Can you imagine the noise of being conducted by banging a spike against the floor (much less the noise of the shriek when the conductor misses the floor).
-Randy
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