 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Pappy
Date: 2009-05-23 16:21
A curiosity about the 10G. I owned a 10G in high school and college in the late 60's/early 70's. Don't own it any longer. (the reason has to do with poor decision making by a person in their early 20's rather than anything about the horn). As I understand it, it was to be Selmer's "answer" to the R-13 and that it succeeded pretty well. Almost all of the comments I've read on the BB are positive about it. So why does Selmer not make it any longer? Did they replace it with another instrument that continued the polycylidrical/undercut tone hole design? Was it a sales bust?
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-05-23 18:18
The 10G was designed by one of my former teachers, Anthony Gigliotti, former prin of the Philly Orchestra and now deceased.
It had a larger bore than the R13, and in large part, used the PRE R13 Buffet and a model, as Mr. Gigliotti felt the R13 was too metallic in sound and had many intonation problems.
The instrument had a very different feel to it ergonomically as well.
Not sure if it was a sales bust. Now more people are apt to try clarinets other than Buffet but at the time, outside of those that had studied with Gigliotti, few pro players played on 10Gs.
Just as in cars, the makers come out with newer models to keep people buying instruments. In many cases, as technology improves, so does clarinet design. So I think there have been many tweaks over the years to make the clarinet better. I just tried the Selmer Priviledge and was very impressed.
But like you, I sold a beautiful set of 10Gs in the mid 80's that I now wish I had kept. They were good instruments and would have come in handy for me.
So don't feel bad.
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Author: aero145
Date: 2009-05-23 19:37
Interesting thread.
May I ask what the difference between the 10G and the 10S ist? Or is is it just the same as the 10S-->10S II?
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-05-23 20:03
I don't know anything about the 10S but I know that David Shifrin was playing on 10G's at the time and may have had a hand in the 10S. Perhaps one of his students may know something more about that.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2009-05-23 21:34
I'd doubt that Shifrin had anything to do with the 10S - possibly it was before his time even.
Gigliotti felt that Selmer didn't promote his 10 nearly enough. They were concerned with other models more and to him didn't put in the adveritizing that was the case with other models. I think it was the Recital actually that was promoted more.
Shifrin (at least by the late 80's when I worked with him) went back to Buffet.
I wasn't a fan of the 10G at all. Very 1 dimensional to me. I played a 10G A Clarinet at the Teton's (recording of Bartok Concerto Slow mvt. on my page) and though it sounded good, I liked the Buffet Prestige A I got 3 years later a lot, lot more. Much more flexible tonaly.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-05-23 21:58
David,
10G predates Recital, Signatures, et al. It was an extension of the numbered series of Selmers (...7,8,9...). Despite what Mr. G may have said, it was the premium clarinet in their product line. In order for it to have gained market share vis a vis the Buffet it would indeed have to have been marketed aggressively but in the end stand on its own legs to survive on its own
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Author: C2thew
Date: 2009-05-24 04:56
The 10G is incredibly free blowing which allows you to use a closer tipped mouthpiece and stiffer reeds yet still maintain a full depth of volume. 10G's are more desirable then the 10s largely due to it's unique "brightness" in it's sound. If you've tried the selmer centered tone before, it's basically the opposite in most respects.
The reason why it doesn't edge out the R13 is that some found the "bright" factor too much and opted towards a slightly darker tone that buffet is known for. However, buffet does have some slight intonation problems.
I believe the 10s was a essentially a step up above the selmer signet soloist. though you get a slightly darker, mature tone. in my experience though, the 10s just didn't offer the vibrancy of colors that the professional instruments do.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-05-24 15:12
The 10G closely followed on the 10, which was the original collaboration between Gigliotti and Selmer. The Model 10 was essentially, as I always understood it, an attempt to put into a production model all the improvements and tweaks that Hans Moennig had over the years learned to apply to the R-13 and pre-R-13 Buffets that Gigliotti and most of the other major American players at the time were using (Moennig, when he finally found out, felt deeply betrayed). Over the years Gigliotti suggested, and sometimes got Selmer to accept further changes. I had heard that one of the reasons for the final demise of the model, or at least its replacement at the top of Selmer's model spectrum, was that they got tired of Gigliotti's constant attempts to improve the product, which I suppose required periodic retooling that cost Selmer more than it wanted to invest.
It's interesting to read C2thew's take that the 10G was brighter than the equivalent Buffet models of its time. Gigliotti's intent was always to produce a tone he considered darker while still focused and compact. Studying with him for several years made me very aware of the uselessness of most of the descriptors, but particularly "bright" and "dark," that we're all tempted to use to describe clarinet tone (or that of any other instrument). While he succeeded very well at getting Selmer to produce a clarinet *he considered to be* a bridge between German dark robustness and French focused clarity (paraphrasing his characterizations), many other players during and since his playing days have criticized his tone as having been, if anything, bright and inflexible. Players on both sides are listening to the same sound (although I've always suspected that many of his detractors based their opinions mostly on recordings, which never captured his tone quality very faithfully).
Karl
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-05-24 16:19
Karl, good post and Ken thanks for the link.
Both posts seem accurate to what I have heard. I studied with Mr. Gigliotti for two years (77-79) and during that time bought both a 10G Bb and A and played them for the first 10 years of my professional career.
I would not consider the sound of the 10G to be "brighter" than a R13 though many would argue that it did not have the color of the Buffet.
To be quite honest, Gigliotti did not have the sound that others of his generation (namely Wright and Marcellus) were known for. I think in large part due to his overblowing a very close set up that was not made with volume in mind. While having great technique and unshakeable confidence, he was most sensitive to aspects around sound. This may have been in large part due to criticism he received in his early years from Tabuteau and Kincaid when he first arrived in the Philly Orchestra.
In his later years with Muti as conductor, he actually sounded much better on recordings perhaps due to the refinement Muti brought to the Philly orchestra after the years of treading water with Ormandy.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2009-05-25 00:37
Dileep -
Gigliotti followed McLane http://www.bostonrecords.com/servlet/the-136/Ralph-McLane/Detail, who had a famously beautiful sound.
At least in his earlier years, Gigliotti had a sound that recorded with a metallic quality, which I disliked when I heard it on LPs from the 1960s and 50s. He said he needed that kind of power to be heard through the famously rich and thick Philadelphia string sound, particularly in the famously dead acoustics of the Academy of Music. He said that in Philadelphia, you had to play at one of three dynamic levels: forte, fortissimo and BTSOOI (Blow The S**t Out Of it)
That particular kind of tone doesn't record well. Alan Hacker, for example, has the same quality and sounds dreadful on LP, but when I heard him in person it sounded lively and quite beautiful. When I heard Gigliotti live at a master class near the end of his career, he still had that amazing power, but his sound was very fine. He played the Pines of Rome solo at a nearly inaudible pppp, which was perfectly clear at the back of a very dead hall. The high-frequency "ping" he had let him be heard anywhere.
CDs are nicer to Gigliotti's sound than LPs. He sounds terrific on the Boston Records reissues of the Philadelhpia Woodwind Quintet recordings. http://www.bostonrecords.com/servlet/Categories?category=Ensemble
Tabuteau was universally admired for his oboe playing, but universally despised for his hateful personality. Kalmen Opperman, who studied with McLane, told me that Tabuteau did his best to drive McLane out of the orchestra. McLane worked like a dog to keep his technique perfect, and Tabueau eventually accepted him, but it was never easy.
Ken Shaw
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2009-05-25 00:57
A lot of it was his equipment that was constantly changing. Tony G. was working on Mouthpieces and using them in performance. Some were much better than others. And the Clarinets kept improving also.
The Z series of the 10G are to many considered among the very best. I played a Y, and have a Z now as a spare (one of many spares though).
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Pappy
Date: 2009-05-25 01:24
Thank you Ken. That does shed some light. Of course, I haven't had that instrument for many years. I believe I acquired it new - selected by my teacher and my father (who was also a clarinet player) - in 1970 or 1971. Does that sound right? What "batch" of 10G's would that be - the semi finished ones sent to Elkhart (which sounds right actually. I grew up in and lived in Fort Wayne at the time and I know my teacher would take little jaunts over to Elkhart a lot)? Having parted with the 10G after college I have played my fathers 1964 R-13 ever since.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-05-25 01:55
FWIW, my B-flat 10G, selected at a lesson with Gigliotti in late 1972 or very early 1973, is an X series instrument. I've always felt it is closer than later ones (but certainly not identical) to the feel of my pre-R13 Buffet rebuilt by Hans Moennig.
I studied with Gigliotti from 1965-69 and then again from 1972-74. When I graduated in 1969 and left to play in the Army Field Band (it was the height of the Vietnam War), I had heard nothing about Selmer or the 10G. When I returned for graduate study in September of 1972, he was very much involved in the project as well as beginning to develop his mouthpiece line based on one of his Chedevilles. There's no way to know how long my instrument was sitting around before I bought it, but I'd suspect that in 1970 or even 1971 a Series 10 or 10G would have been very close to the original prototypes.
Karl
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2009-05-25 02:45
Loren Kitt's set of 10G clarinets was also from the E series mentioned in one of the linked threads above. Gigliotti had gone to Paris in 1988 (early in the year) and picked out 7 sets. Kitt got a set (most likely the 1st or 2nd pick assuming Tony kept one), Mr. G's girlfriend got one, I got one - not sure what became of the other 3 sets.
I ended up not keeping it after about a month. Took it to Jacobi to get checked out, $10 later it had Mark's "blessing" though no work needed to be done to it. But I didn't like the low A on the Bb Clarinet at all. It was really stuffy and uncentered. I ended up returning the set and shopped for something else. Got a set of Buffet Prestige's which I really liked and still play today as my main horns.
Gigliotti wasn't happy, at all...... but I was and that was what counted. I was 25 at the time, but man did he make me feel like I was 15.
Took a couple of years for him to get over it.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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