Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2019-10-30 23:48
Caroline Smale wrote:
> I am not worried about whether or not "academics" have done any
> specific tests on this. The evidence of the effects of poor
> bore maintenance I have seen in 60 years of handling woodwind
> instruments is convincing enough for me.
>
I'm not much worried about "academics," either. I'd be happy for evidence compiled by repair people or the manufacturers themselves. Of the cracked instruments you've worked on, how many showed evidence (other that the fact of having cracked) of having dried out, especially the instruments that were beyond a year or two old?
I, for what little it's worth, have owned 12 clarinets over my playing life. Two, both less than a year old, have cracked. I have never oiled my instruments routinely. That's not evidence one way or the other. I may just have been very lucky. Twelve clarinets, of probably millions that have been sold and used over the last, shall we say, century, isn't much of a sample. It doesn't really prove anything much.
Not all repair people agree with you that failure to do routine oiling is responsible for cracking instruments. We all tend to remember things that support what we already believe and maybe discount as exceptions the things that don't support us. I only wish that someone who deals with a lot of instruments over time would decide consciously to contribute to answering this question (which has been asked, I'm certain, far longer than I've been a clarinetist, maybe as long as woodwind instruments have existed) by keeping objective notes on the condition of the wood for each cracked instrument they work on (could include oboes and bassoons, I would think), then after a reasonable number of instruments, compiling those notes. It wouldn't take an "academic" or a university physics lab. Just a very busy repair shop.
What would be needed is an objective way to define and identify dry wood.
Karl
Post Edited (2019-10-31 00:29)
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