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Re: New instrument feels hard to play. Need help!

Author: kdk
Date: 2018-08-30 00:32

Chris P wrote:

> I see this a lot on both some
> new clarinets and also clarinets set up or overhauled by
> incompetents.
>

Chris, I agree, and that's the problem - since we don't know (and shouldn't) who the repairer is, we don't know if the work was done competently or not. If he or she is competent, a quick play-test should have pointed up the problem before it was sent out.

When I taught full time, our school district was sending district-owned instruments to be repaired at the local outlet of a national chain that markets mostly to schools. The techs were competent people. Sometimes the instruments would come back still completely unplayable. I could see new pads and I could read the invoice details, but the instrument still didn't play. Why? Because, obviously, no one was testing the instruments before they left the shop. They just went down a checklist of things to be done and then turned the instrument back around to be returned to us. I had to send a bass clarinet back three times before it came back playable (and still not wonderful) even after the complaining I did.

So, I repeat for jsantos1 (and anyone else who wants to read it again), "highly reputed" or "reputable" doesn't automatically equate to "good" or "trustworthy."

Karl

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