The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: William S
Date: 2012-10-29 12:26
Hello all,
I visited the Yamaha shop in Osaka a few hours earlier to have a look at what they had in the sax and clarinet dept. The only out-of-the-ordinary thing there was an eye-wateringly expensive Bb clarinet called the Ideal G - ¥570,000. I had a quick play on it in the middle of the shop and concluded that it was quite nice! The very friendly staff there naturally could barely speak a word of English, and my phrase book can't deal with clarinet talk. I emerged from the shop knowing very little indeed about the instrument I had just played.
The web has virtually nothing about it in English (and what there is is incomprehensible anyway.)
It has very short barrels at 54.5 and 55.5mm otherwise more or less standard looking.
Does anyone know more than I do about it?
Thanks,
Bill
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2012-10-29 13:33
Google - "Yamaha clarinet ideal G"
Lots and lots about it. Seems like one of their prize pro selections.
I took a brief look and the listed prices are around $5,000 plus.
Let us know how it compares to buffets, selmers, maybe La blanc.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2012-10-29 13:44
Limited edition CSGIII perhaps?
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: charlesgordon
Date: 2012-10-29 14:09
Well that was frightening - It seems you used the symbol for the Chinese Yuan instead of the Japanese Yen. 570,000 Yuan = 92,000 USD. I was actually concerned Yamaha had lost its mind...
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2012-10-29 14:17
charlesgordon wrote:
> It seems you used the symbol for
> the Chinese Yuan instead of the Japanese Yen.
Nope. That's a yen sign with the right unicode, but the yen sign can be used for yuan.
Which is confusing without context! 元 is the right one for Chinese currency.
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Author: William S
Date: 2012-10-29 15:10
Oh, I could only find one page specifically about the Ideal model, and it was gobbledegook. A real Google Translate horror. No, worse:
http://global.rakuten.com/en/store/kurosawastore/item/yam-yclidealga/
I can't give you comparisons as I haven't played many of those that you mention, and I was standing in the middle of a busy shop being peered at by curious staff. My clarinets are wide bore Boosey 1010 & 926s and a Series 9 and I haven't played them for nearly a month now so can't even remember what they play like. Time to get home from this long business trip!
But I will say that it seemed to me to have an easy altissimo, possibly a more spread sound than R13s that I've played or owned. Very obviously beautifully made. But, as I say, I only played it for 5 mins before I started to feel too self-conscious!
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