Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2018-01-23 01:41
First I wanted to disagree, but I you're right, seabreeze, and it has currently happened to me (as an amateur), that an instrument let me down after I was intially enthusiastic. It just couldn't tune as well as my Buffet with the rest of the section - even though any other aspect about it was better.
But I must have gotten a bad copy and when I was given a hand-selected R13, I found the sound rather dull (which was me? whole different world when the pro played it). And then again I felt that there are better instruments (and I had played better instruments already), but it didn't matter for him. When he sent me records, I might or might not have like the ones where he played on a R-13 - again impossible to tell. Remniscing about these things now, I feel overwhelmed by bias and have to question how much these issues matter, when I'm so unable to discern instruments and setups played by someone else.
I just wonder how these "acadamic" considerations have an impact on the quality of top notch orchestral music and how I, as a consumer, am affected by this (since, as you put it, their living depends on instrument choice). Heck, what did I play on the clarinet for as long as I can renember and still spend money on lessons, when I'm not able to say wether this or that guy on this or that clarinet sounded/projected/whatever better? Having grown up with the "german sound", I'm more and more starting to question whether german system clarinets are really necessary to produce it, just as I doubt the inherent superiority of the "Buffet" sound. By the way, most German pros are fully convinced "our" system is better.
Yet I'm getting more and more picky and overly sensitive when chosing an instrument, but for me, it's just part of the hobby.
My supposition is that the fabled Buffet sound has a lot to do with what thousands of musicians grew up with, while at the same time it might be very well possible for them to be better than other instruments - but certainly not all. Backun having few, but not many supporters now only proves that they can be used in a pro enviroment. Either the people deciding for them are wrong or found reasons more important than projection, otherwise there is no explanation for them settling on these clarinets. But there is no reasonable explanation for different clarinet systems either, unless one assumes an absolutely significant difference between them.
Bottom line: As long as there are no double-blind tests regarding these issues, I'm rather skeptic.
Best regards
Christian
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
