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What good is wood?

Author: notthatricardo
Date: 2018-03-20 02:42

I'm one of those people who foolishly gave up playing clarinet in their teens and only realised the error of their ways 40 years later.

Anyway, i'm re-learning to play and have decided to treat myself to an intermediate (hate that term) or professional-level instrument.

However, i'm unable to decide whether to opt for a wooden clarinet or one made of a composite material, such as reinforced grenadilla, or hard rubber.

I suppose my heart is saying wood (for the sound quality) and my head is saying composite/rubber (for the dimensional stability and resistance to cracking).

A strong case for the latter is provided by a couple of YouTube videos which show two prominent Backun artists (Ricardo Morales and Jose Franch-Ballester) having their $8500 MoBa clarinets re-reamed by Morrie Backun to correct perceived playing deficiencies.

Is this sort of corrective measure unusual? And, if not, why go to the bother of using CNC machines to produce wooden clarinets to incredibly tight tolerances?

Apologies if these are naive questions!

Thanks,

Richard

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