Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2017-07-31 21:10
As an all but retired economist by "day," a clarinet player/teacher by "night," I've studied human behavior and the purchase decision.
IMHO, parallels can be found with expensive clarinet gear and clinical drug trials.
The link is desperation and false hope. Sadly, as we are only human, in times of desperation, where ironically enough, critical and logical decision making needs to be first and foremost, some of us tend, in the absence of preventive mechanisms, to throw metaphorical "Hail Mary" passes with decision making.
There are good reasons why, for example, clinical trials of say a new cancer medication have precise and supervised protocols for who is eligible to participate in them. And the reason why is that in situations of desperation, particularly where we think we have nothing to lose, we're apt to try, against medical advise, the latest snake oil remedy, with limited or no efficacy, worse harmful outcomes, sold by people more interested in profit then cure.
I'm not some conspiracy theorist. I do believe that most purveyors of clarinet products really do wish, in addition to profit, that their wares add value to the clarinet playing experience, and sales are largely a product of informed consumer recommendations.
But I also think that wide variations exist among suppliers, perhaps with Ridenour, IMHO, being at the more honest end, and Silverstein closer to the other side of this spectrum (and not to suggest one pure and the other corrupt.)
Then again, in farness to each, and all in between, nobody forces us to make purchases, and few of us want government telling us what we can and can't do beyond basic rules that promote fairness and safety.
To stall innovation is both silly and in many ways illegal. But to honor those who paved the way, with simpler clarinet setups is to help us to remember that the best investment is in ourselves and the advances that hard, focused, and near flawless work in front of an etude book and a metronome clicking at 110bps has yet to be surpassed by many of the marginal improvements of gear.
Maybe if it wasn't so hard to make a living as an symphonic clarinetist less pros would enter endorsement deals that fuel some of these spending decisions.
Then again, the market does what the market does, and sadly for me, it seems to prefer Kanye to Kalmen (Opperman).
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The Clarinet BBoard
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