Author: LaurieBell
Date: 2014-10-16 01:13
I'm having a very frustrating problem and wondered if anyone else has experienced the same. My Buffet R13 Bb clarinet plays beautifully until about 30 or 40 minutes. Then all of the sudden, some notes start to stop up. They don't sound at all unless I give it a second and try again. This primarily happens in the middle register "C" and "B" though it happens on other notes too.
My clarinet is 40 years old. I played it extensively for the first 20 years then picked it up again last year (2013). This year I noticed it had a leaky pad so I had it professionally overhauled by a reputable repair person (out of state) in June. He used cork pads on the upper joint, synthetic pads on the lower joint, did some tone hole resurfacing, and beveled the pads.
I didn't notice the problem until after I played on it for about a month. During this time I also increased my practice time to 60 minutes twice a day, so it's possible the problem was there before.
I shipped it back for adjustments and he replaced a trill key cork pad in the upper joint with a synthetic pad. But basically he thought the clarinet was in sound condition.
Yet, I continue to have this problem, but only after the clarinet is warmed up.
Today I took it to another repair person (in town this time). She checked it and did not find any cracks or leaks. Her first thought was that when my clarinet becomes saturated, the synthetic pads may be sticking. (She said these pads have that tendency). She suggested I try swabbing it out every 10 minutes to see if that fixed the problem; and if not, she could change the pads back to skin-faced pads. She also mentioned concern that the cork pads were very finely beveled and couldn't tell if there were any problems there until she looked at the instrument more closely.
I've never heard of having to swab out a clarinet that often and couldn't begin to think how I would get through a performance, so I asked her to go ahead and change the synthetic pads, since that is what I previously used without any problem.
As an aside, I had my husband's LeBlanc Bb clarinet overhauled at same time in June by the same person using the same materials. I haven't noticed any problems with it yet, but haven't played it as much.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that changing out the pads will do the trick, but I wondered if anyone else had ever heard of such a problem, and if so, what was your fix?
P.S. Sorry for the long post.
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