 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BelgianClarinet
Date: 2007-04-01 17:28
Recently on the BB I saw an article on 'buying clarinets via .... who picks out good (or the best) instruments ... etc...
I also know that all our local shops only sell "hand picked" clarinet by mr/s ....
So I was just wondering :who buys all those 'bad' instruments that never get 'hand picked' ?
How many of the new top range (big 4) instruments that hit the market, are not worth buying ? Are they sold to unaware, uninformed victims ?
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Author: GBK
Date: 2007-04-01 17:59
BelgianClarinet wrote:
> How many of the new top range (big 4) instruments that hit the
> market, are not worth buying ? Are they sold to unaware,
> uninformed victims ?
Probably because some players have lower standards of selection than others.
ALL clarinets eventually find a home.
BTW - How do you really know that the smaller private sellers who tout "hand selected" instruments are just sending out the SAME (and possibly rejected by past customers) 3 R13's to any prospective client until they are eventually sold?
After all, how much $$ do you really think these smaller sellers can have tied up in unsold instruments, until a seller emerges? 3 clarinets? 5 clarinets? Certainly not 15 instruments or more.
I'd love to be proven wrong ...GBK
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-04-01 18:06
mail orders, orders for clarinet students who didn't take the time to try them out themselves, items returned to music stores across the country from someone who bought it, tried it and didn't like it. Then someone else buys that returned item for the name only and doesn't try it out assuming that the name itself speaks of the quality. Military (yea me!) who looks for the best budget buy on a certain instrument, and trusts that the name itself will speak for the quality. Any donations that a manufacturer or music store might decide to make to local schools or organizations. That's what comes to mind when I think of what happens to those instruments that weren't 'hand-picked' by someone to play.
Alexi
PS - Also realize that while a music store might have 'hand-picked' items, who's to say that whoever picked them knows what to look for in a clarinet? Or if they do, is as scrupulous as you might be in picking a clarinet? Or maybe they prefer different attributes in a clarinet than you might (different resistance, different tone, different key action, different ring heights, etc.)
hehehe
US Army Japan Band
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-04-01 18:37
So you potentially end up with a "ten times rejected" horn which de facto is a "loaner" instrument, yet you pay the full price...
--
Ben
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2007-04-01 18:58
It's like everything else; barrels, mouthpieces, reeds, cars, toilet paper: one person will swear by "a" and reject "b," while the next person finds that he can't live without "b." I can only hope no one would judge a clarinet by the spring tension adjustment on the spot, but then, how do you really know how the horn will seal once this is adjusted properly?
Some horns probably are just better in tune internally with themselves but in the long run, a good professional horn will be close enough that the adjustments we make as we play render it serviceable.
The guys who can afford the time and effort to try fifty clarinets just need to feel they have what is most comfortable for the the way they play right now.
...........Paul Aviles
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-04-01 19:26
Quote:
So you potentially end up with a "ten times rejected" horn which de facto is a "loaner" instrument, yet you pay the full price... or even worse. . . a mouthpiece which has been bought and returned x amount of times.Quote:
The guys who can afford the time and effort to try fifty clarinets just need to feel they have what is most comfortable for the the way they play right now. Which if they DO invest that time and $$$ to do so, power to them. Of course if you DON'T have that time you can always pay someone to set up a horn that you like to your exact standards rather than play the R13 mail-order lotto hoping that Buffet R-13 #xxxxxx coming in the mail from across the country might be that magic horn that seemingly plays itself . . . or, as Paul says above, take a horn which is in decent tune throughout and MAKE it work. All depends on what you decide to do. many avenues, all leading to the same end . . . making music.
Alexi
Also, let's not forget that that "bad" clarinet of yours or others that have returned to the store just be exactly what I was looking for in a clarinet. Maybe your overly stuffy, extremely resistant hard to press down pinky keys is exactly what I need for my wildly freeblowing mouthpiece and large, muscular, near herculean digits.
US Army Japan Band
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Author: donald
Date: 2007-04-01 20:03
There was a period here in NZ where the standard of the Buffet Clarinets for sale, in the largest (and just about the only) retailer that stocks pro horns, was so low that i suspected that "rejected horns" were being sent here. When i think about it now, i'm sure that i heard older pro players say this when i was at school so maybe it was really just clari-urban myth ala "who puts the one good reed in the box".
At the same time- i was seeing and playing instruments of such poor quality on the shop floor that it was very easy to believe this "myth", and (no suprise) most pro level players had instruments that they'd selected overseas. hmmmm.
At any rate- i believe this is no longer the case, the new instruments i've played seem to be of much improved quality. Btw, i have often suspected the same thing as GBK and agree with Paul to some extent...
donald
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2007-04-01 20:37
Maybe the rejects get purchased by people like my father, whom was advised by my teacher about 9 years ago "Just order an R13". And that's he did. It was still better than what I was playing on at the time.
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Author: pewd
Date: 2007-04-01 20:46
i've been in music stores when someone comes in and tells the sales rep they need a new clairnet/trumpet/saxophone/ whatever
the sales rep selects one from the display, tells the customer 'this is the best one for your student', and the parent whips out a credit card.
done deal. happens all the time, at music stores and internet stores all over the country.
many students simply buy the first horn they are shown (or shipped in the case of internet sales).
and for the vast majority of students, thats fine, its a major upgrade over what they have.
i don't recommend it for serious students, but i can't control their parents.
sometimes they show up for a lesson, 'look what i got for my birthday', forgetting everything they've been taught about instrument selection.
the ones that show up with a downgraded horn are the ones i worry about
- Paul Dods
Dallas, Texas
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2007-04-01 23:50
(Disclaimer - I am seller of the Forte' Bb and C clarinets)
My personal knowledge from talking with many parents and band directors (more than 2 times my number of fingers and toes combined) from Texas at TMEA this year is that in many school districts the band members are expected to have a plastic clarinet for marching band and, at least in high school, an R-13 for indoor use. Most of the parents and many of the band directors indicate that they get them either from the local music store, the contract bidder for the State of Texas, or from a mail order house and few had the least bit of knowledge about testing out various R-13s and choosing between them. I gather that unless there are gross mechanical problems that these horns are played for however long the student remains in band and then mostly recycled, because there would be a huge glut on the famous auction site each year, to new band members. The same situation exists to some extent in Florida from my interactions at the FMEA convention. I cannot speak for other states from first hand knowledge. This seems to speak for either the naivete' of the buying public in these situations or the general good level of playability of the R-13. This cycle has been in place for at least 10 years in Texas.
L. Omar Henderson
www.doctorsprod.com
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Author: pewd
Date: 2007-04-01 23:54
much longer than 10 years.
we met at TMEA btw - the last day. i was trying to convince a band director friend of mine to try a forte'. didn't work. the struggle continues...
- Paul Dods
Dallas, Texas
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2007-04-02 03:49
ME, me.
I bought a Buffet back in 1961, not knowing about horn-to-horn variability. I just put down a deposit, and the local shop ordered the clarinet. In contrast to the student plastic instrument I was acustomed to , the Buffy was a joy --particularly the keywork.
Only years later did I realize its shortcomings --amongst the most critical being its horrid intonation and unbalanced scale. Notes stick out all over --particularly in the clarion register.
So, maybe there's ten of me-as-ignorant youth for every more fastidious chooser?
Bob Phillips
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-04-02 07:42
I won't be surprised if many of the rejects arrive to my country..... at least that how it was last time I tried a new clarinet at a store. Barely playable, and that's just the mechanics.
"more than 2 times my number of fingers and toes combined"
But have you had any accidents....? 
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