 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2013-03-14 01:21
I've got a student who was in last weekend's Regional Band (Region 6 near Philadelphia) who's Selmer Signature cracked so badly that the repairman (a very good one) couldn't fix the cracks - they were that bad. Upper joint has to be replaced, and it's not under warranty. The Clarinet is 5-6 years old, so not new, not old, but certainly out of warranty. He worked for about 2 hours, and it just wouldn't seal well enough. When I checked it on my Mag Machine, it was 4 1/2 - not sure how far down he could get it, but he did find it to be "unfixable".
The rehearsal hall was quite cold, and she wore her winter coat during breaks. The instrument was very, very carefully taken care of in regards to humidity, but the dry, and freezing cold hall did her in.
Why does a school have an event like this and not adjust the temperature to suit the needs of the students there????? I can understand a school saving energy $$ on a weekend, but when the hall is scheduled to be used, the heat should be appropriately used.
Warm air and freezing hall don't mix!!! Why are some band directors (host, etc) too dense to realize that? She had an "end row seat", so maybe they are colder than further down in the section, I don't know, but jeez......
The host was even asked to turn up the heat, but nope, didn't happen.
It seems nowadays that a plastic clarinet needs to be brought to these things......
Tempts me to not send students to these things with Wooden Clarinets ever again. This has happened several times to students!!
Sorry for the rant
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
Post Edited (2013-03-17 19:28)
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2013-03-14 01:28
That sucks. Send the bill to the district and see if, at the very least, it never happens to anyone again.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: MSK
Date: 2013-03-14 02:13
The whole situation is appalling on so many levels: damage to the instrument, the rehearsing students' discomfort, the intonation problems. I agree with Tobin. Although the district probably won't fork out the money it might at least get their attention. You could also bring it to the school board and the press might pick it up the story and get some satisfaction.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-03-14 02:30
The final arbiter in this situation is the player. I for one would have refused to play a wooden horn..........seen several crack under similar circumstances.
By all means submit this bill to the host (around $600 for joint and time).
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2013-03-14 02:35
Ya can't do that already at the festival though. Only if the entire section "went on strike" would that begin to fly. She even asked the Host to turn on/up the heat, and that request was ignored - she knows well that cold room, and warm player's air don't mix whatsoever. I instill that in my students, and she did put it under her arm to keep warm before playing, warmed up as gently as possible, but it's a lot of hours of playing in harsh conditions in a school.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Ed
Date: 2013-03-14 02:51
Not that it makes it excusable, but in many schools these days the heating system is computer controlled off site. I have been in situations where it seems to take an act of God to find someone or somehow to get the heat adjusted, up or down. Sometimes despite the supposed advances/improvements in technology, things are moving backwards.
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2013-03-14 13:59
The director should have stopped the rehearsal and refused to go on without a proper temperature. I had a 40 year old Buffet crack for the same reason and I vowed not to let that happen again. Another group I played in had a full group warm up before a concert only to have everyone walk in 30 degree weather to a separate concert hall. I don't play in that group anymore, either. That's my rant for the day.
John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2013-03-14 14:17
What an appalling story. I hope you go for maximum public relations damage on this one, David: write to the local newpaper, e-mail the local radio and TV stations and raise a wild rumpus. And name names.
[Noted later: I've left my original post here to avoid confusion, but after reading about the Director's claim that the hall was in fact no colder than 65 degrees F, I no longer agree with myself. If the Director told the truth, then the hall was not "Freezing cold."]
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2013-03-15 15:32)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2013-03-14 14:45
johng wrote:
> The director should have stopped the rehearsal and refused to
> go on without a proper temperature.
Assuming the situation was as David's student describes it (it wouldn't take an unreasonably or uncomfortably low temp to encourage an instrument to crack - a 65 degree room might be cool enough), the director might have done several things had he felt he had any control over the situation or flexibility in his schedule. In these auditioned ensemble festivals the ensemble directors, who are typically university band directors, are employed by the sponsoring organization (in this case Pa Music Educators' Association), who in turn entrusts the actual physical conditions of the festival (housing, food, rehearsal spaces) within guidelines to the host school. Rehearsal and concert schedules are all predetermined long before the event.
As another poster noted, the building temperature in today's schools is often centrally controlled by computer. To save money, these systems are typically programmed to drop the temperature somewhere into the 50-60 degree range over the weekend (which often begins early Friday afternoon, since the building will retain heat long enough to reach the end of the school day). If this happened on a Saturday, it might have taken a couple of hours to roust someone from home who both is authorized and knows how to override the programming.
While I agree the director might have taken a more active stand in this, I can understand his trying to get the job done he was hired to do in a severely limited amount of time.
The safeguards that will, hopefully, be put into place to prevent repeats of this kind of problem won't fix David's student's clarinet, but may give PMEA and other similar NafME organizations a little leverage and a larger repertoire of responses to use in future situations.
Karl
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2013-03-14 14:57
I'd figure no way that the Concert would be cold - too much body heat in the Auditorium.
Could have been the Saturday AM practice though.
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2013-03-15 13:07
It's not quite the same situation and things may work differently in the US but I'm afraid that the kind souls who organise music events are not always that knowledgeable about the practicalities of music-making. I remember competing in a music festival held at a school where the adjudicator had specifically said that she would only take the job if the pianos were in tune so that the wind players could tune to them. Of course they were flat as pancakes and none of us could get down to them.
However, of course, the adjudicator was happy to make allowances for this in her marking given that she knew the difficulties the competitors were under and this did not actually cause damage to the instruments.
Vanessa.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2013-03-15 13:11
Heard back from Director.
He said that the room didnt go under 65 degrees, and that the optimal temp for Wooden instruments is 65-75 degrees.
65 to me sounds really low - yes?
But the room was set to a base temp of 68, which doesn't sound outrageous.
He also mentioned the body heat thing, which I had mentioned, but she was on the end, so edges would be colder than a center player.
District not liable
I knew they wouldn't take any responsibility, but if any others cracked, and they wrote about it, as least he would know.
And I mentioned that the first chair's clarinet cracked at District band, and wondered if they heard about that? (Implying that if they hadn't, as the president of that district was CC'd, there can be cracks that they aren't hearing about).
Replacement Joint ordered. The Clarinet joint was 4.5 on my mag machine before it was worked on, and 5 afterwards.
It works, but "there's a leak".....
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
Post Edited (2013-03-15 13:31)
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2013-03-15 13:26
Reminds me of the early 1940s Allentown high school marching band, which attended all home football games, some of them in very cold weather. I used my old metal clarinet for them, but I was not aware of other kids having problems, except we were freezing in our inadequate uniforms. Our fingers were shielded somewhat by cutting holes in our gloves. The majorettes must have nearly frozen.
richard smith
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Author: William
Date: 2013-03-15 14:43
Not heating the school might have been an economic decision. With school budgets being cut in most states, it is the arts that suffer first. Some schools have discontinued festivals and other special events that music students enjoyed in the past. In fact, some districts are eliminating school music all together. It seems a bit trivial to be complaining about a cracked clarinet when there is a much bigger elephant in the room.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2013-03-15 15:29
>>The rehearsal hall was bone freezing cold, and she wore her winter coat while rehearsing. The instrument was very, very carefully taken care of in regards to humidity, but the dry, and freezing cold hall did her in.>>
But then the director reports that the hall was 65 degrees F, with the gauge set for 68 degrees. That's hardly "bone freezing cold" and it's not at all what I imagined from what your student reported per your original post. I keep my house at 65 degrees in winter and I try to keep the humidity at about 50 percent. None of my clarinets have ever cracked. Of course they're staying in the house, not moving in and out between 65 degrees and the truly freezing temperatures outdoors in winter.
I wonder whether your student's clarinet might have cracked from a sudden temperature change (from bitter outdoor weather to indoor weather without enough time to acclimate gradually to the difference before she started blowing warm air into the bore), and not from an inappropriate temperature indoors. I retract what I wrote above about slamming the school with negative publicity. There's more to this story than we knew at the time.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2013-03-15 15:33
I don't think we still know exactly what happened leading up to the cracked instrument, but there is another issue to be considered by kids who are playing in these festivals (and their teachers). The rehearsals are long - they begin typically around 10 AM and often are scheduled until 4 or 4:30 PM. In the PMEA festivals, that's Thursday and Friday with a shorter schedule on Saturday leading up to the concert. Obviously, there are several short breaks and a lunch break during that stretch. Every time the group takes a break, even in a room where the temp is 65-68 degrees (F), the instruments cool down. A lot of kids (and probably adults) who routinely warm their clarinets up before the first rehearsal, forget to repeat the process after returning from a break. I know this from first-hand experience. My first R13 cracked 50 years ago at my first PMEA District Band festival. It happened after a break, and the stage was not all that cold.
It's no consolation to David's student, but 68 degrees is going to be considered a normal, healthful room temperature probably in any school district in the U.S. northeast these days, and many only heat to 65 even during school hours. That's (maybe) enough for creature comfort, but it's also low enough to cause this kind of accident when the instrument is left to cool for several minutes, then picked up and played.
I guess one take-away for us as teachers is the need to be more careful about warning students about this kind of danger. The host band directors and the hired guest conductors should also probably be more consistent in reminding students to take their wood instruments with them on break and keep them warm. This may well be a permanent problem.
Karl
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Author: JHowell
Date: 2013-03-15 17:06
The Friday evening before the Pittsburgh Symphony left for a European tour on Monday, there was a sending-off concert. Just before, in the afternoon, there was some sort of pop/gospel show in the hall with dancers and entertainers, and I guess they wanted it cold so they wouldn't sweat. Anyway, it was freezing. Their show ran late, and the stage crew barely had time to reset for the PSO. There was not enough time for the hall to warm up. Two clarinets and two oboes cracked. Two players drove to Philadelphia for repairs over the weekend, two played spare instruments on tour.
Not long after that, we clarinetists refused to play in a hall that had not been heated for an opera new year's eve rehearsal. Everyone was wearing winter coats on stage, and my thermometer recorded a high of 62 toward the end of rehearsal. No harm came to us or our instruments, but it would have been much more difficult to take that stand for the concert (which was nicely heated).
I always wonder how the woodwind players managed when orchestras played in freezing halls in Moscow during WW2.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2013-03-15 21:23
In Moscow during WW2, Clarinets were too intimidated to crack
Karl, she knows really well to never play it when cold - to always, always warm the outside next to her body before playing. It's a caution that I literally hammer into students.
The repairman is going to give it another shot tomorrow to find where the leak still is.
The Upper Joint from Selmer is $1100!!!
Buffet he said is only $250.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
Post Edited (2013-03-15 21:29)
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Author: William
Date: 2013-03-16 15:23
Stil......the "elephant" in the room is shrinking school budgets and the possible elimination of fine arts courses as a result. Clarinets will crack due to a variety of reasons--controlable or not. But what will it matter if young people will not have the chance to learn to play them in school because their band programs have been cut from the curriculum? Try to cut a sports program and there is a massive uprising--cut a music program, and the public is, unfortuantely, generally less concerned. To most tax payers, music is only a "frill" and is defined as "extra curricular" by most school administrations. We as musicians must contiune to be as proactive as we can to maintain a presence in the public school setting. Concern regarding a thermostate set at 65 F is not the "big problem".
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2013-03-16 15:29
Yup, agreed
The tech spent more time this AM, and found another crack at the register tube - so the joint wont need to be replaced after all.
Whew!
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Author: kdk
Date: 2013-03-19 02:28
One of my students played in the same PMEA Region 6 festival and confirms (he had a lesson tonight) that the auditorium where they were rehearsing seemed uncomfortably cold. If the thermostat was set at 68 and the temp swung down to 65 degrees before the heat kicked on, it isn't unreasonable for personal comfort. One superintendent I worked for liked to keep our meeting room cooled to 65 - he felt it kept us all from getting drowsy and dozing off. But I'd quarrel with the host's assertion that "the optimal temp for Wooden instruments is 65-75 degrees." Sounds like something he heard during a clinic for band directors or a university course he took for professional development. Maybe true when the instrument isn't in use, sitting on a stand. But my suspicion, which I have no way to validate, is that blowing 98 degree air into a clarinet that's been cooled to a room temp of 65 degrees represents a less than optimal differential and poses a risk. It's certainly something I would try to avoid putting to a test if possible.
Karl
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Author: Catherine B.
Date: 2013-03-19 04:37
Worst performance space I've ever been in is still the concerts from All State conventions from when I was in high school in Illinois. The arena its held in hosts lots of hockey games in January so the floor is always ice that time of year, with insulated tiles laid on top. I could look down and still see ice through the cracks between the panels. This was 13 years ago and I still remember that the group I was in performed 1st and that I sat through the rest of the perfomances with my horn stuck up the sleeve of my coat on my lap and the rest of my coat folded under my bum to insulate it from the cold metal folding chair.
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