Author: ThatPerfectReed
Date: 2014-04-23 18:02
Ed:
I agree. The OP's video link doesn't establish scientific equality of most basically competant ligatures, though it does suggest it, and certainly doesn't refute it.
Perhaps its tongue-in-cheek manner does, at least for me, poke deserved fun at some of the prices and designs of ligatures out there.
Clearly your opinion is for me and others to respect, but I must confess that the laughter you cite, for me at least, paradoxically enough, is not at the arguments dismissing ligature marketing hype, but the arguments made by some ligature vendors in their marketing hype, or at least the prices they charge. This fee may help recoup their research costs, but consumers are more apt to pay for results, not the success or failure of research.
I agree it's a personal decision, but it concerns me when people buy into such hype that's backed by little independent blind, ideally triple blind (player, audience, test administrator) testing. Please consider the possibility that vendors have already done such scientific testing, found results not favoring their product, and didn't publish their findings.
Even if a "best practices" methodology could be achieved regarding the optimum placement of a model of ligature, the torquing of its screws etc., such findings might be as transient as a particular reed, at a particular point in time.
Paul:
I agree that scientific investigation would be useful, and this video wasn't science, anymore than I suspect its author intended it to be proof positive, or failed to make any valid points. If he challenged people's ideas, and invited vendors and buyers to do research, I think he hit his mark.
As Tom Ridenour didn't comment on the videos it's interesting that you quipped a wood vs. hard rubber test of similar style to the OPs video his way, (although one cited video was from his dad). I in no way speak for Ridenour Clarinet Products, but I'd love a video that got people to start to think, even if only a stepping stone to further research, about how once a quality material was chosen for clarinet design, that its playabilty and sound were more a function of craftsmanship than the plastic, hard rubber, grenadilla, rose- or boxwood etc. chosen to make it. I'd love a video suggesting that hard rubber has earned a place at the "adult table," if not the head chair given its dimentional stablity and dwindling supplies of grenadilla...but I digress.
===========
I think clarinets and diets have things in common. They're hard. There's no magic bullet to success. New diet/clarinet products come along, from pills to exercise regiments, to ligatures, accessories and other products, that frustrated people spent lots of money on and try. Some are good, few are paradigm changers, most are at best, nothing special.
I completely get that for the high end player, a ligature may get them, or make them feel as if it's getting them even marginal improvements in play. I completely get that all clarinets and ligatures are not alike.
But for most of the rest of us, dieting is about 3 nutritious balanced portion controlled meals a day with moderate exercise, and clarinet improvement is about lots of meaningful practice. Many of us enjoy trying new clarinet things, and improvements, to an extent, can be made using this approach. But doing so can also take away from practice time if we're not careful.
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
