 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Eugene
Date: 2001-02-06 04:39
I can get one for about 600-650 canadian is it worth it if i have to buy a new mouthpiece and do my own pad job .I played it ,low note were realy nice but middle and upper register was very stuffy or hard to blow like playing with your nose pinched.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2001-02-06 19:19
I have had no acquaintance with a B&H alto, would guess "yours" was made well before the recent Buffet acquisition. Several of the [probably] French-made altos I've played were weak in the clarion, tho my Selmer is better than most. I had one and recently repaired-checked-out another older LeBlanc alto , which I have heard was larger-bored, which spoke out even stronger than my Sel, so I suggest you see if you can find one for comparison. Would also suggest a fairly wide lay mp and a med-soft reed. Luck, Don
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Author: Dave Spiegelthal
Date: 2001-02-07 14:56
I'm never worked on a B&H alto clarinet, but I've restored quite a few B&H "The Edgware" student/intermediate soprano clarinets, dating from 1947 to about 1958. My general impression of those is that they were made of very nice wood (not including the hard-rubber models of 1954-5), but the metal used for the keywork was generally not top-notch, and there were many ergonomic flaws (clumsy key sizes/shapes/placements) which can create fingering difficulties, especially for people such as myself with relatively poor hand position. Also, some of the notes tend to be stuffy unless corrected by slight undercutting of the toneholes and raising of the pad heights. Fortunately the basic instrument (as far as the bore and tonehole placements) seems to be well-designed and made, and the mechanism problems are mostly correctable, so the B&H soprano clarinets can be made into very nice instruments with some "aftermarket modification". I don't know if these observations are valid for their harmony clarinets, but if I had to guess without any other information, I'd suspect that the B&H alto might have quite a few flaws 'as received', but might be made to work very nicely by a competent technician.
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