Author: Plonk
Date: 2019-12-06 01:08
The clarinets are mine!
Quite a funny back story. The guy I bought them off doesn't play clarinet at all. He bought them for his girlfriend 2 years ago, but then they split up. (They split up before she knew what she was getting for Christmas - who knows if it would have made a difference!!) As he doesn't play, he was treated to a demo by the guy he bought them off, and was suitably impressed with their tone and condition. They've been languishing in a cupboard since then.
Fast forward to last week. I bought them blind, but as he lives fairly near to me he offered to deliver them to my home itself, which was great. He told me the story thus far, and I opened up the box. A pair of pretty dusty clarinets, but still looking fairly good. I checked them over and quickly saw the A had bent r.h. pinkie keys - bent so much none of them did what they are supposed to. Playing low E produced F#! He was pretty devastated by the news, mostly because he'd been duped by the guy who obviously just played something that avoided those keys. He offered to refund me, but I took a gamble and said I would keep them. Took them into to WWR Cambridge and they sorted it in 5 mins, so all is now good!
The difference between the Custom CS and my YCL34 is immense. The tuning is much better, but it's the clarity of the tone which blows me away. The rubbish notes on the 34 were e.g. C# (fuzzy), weak throat tones, really difficult high altissimo, flat lowest notes. All of these were instant fixes. They feel so nice - very responsive, big sound with a wider dynamic range, so much fun to play!
I do find the Bb a bit heavier than the old one, and can feel some pressure on my right thumb which I didn't have before, but hopefully this will ease off.
I've dusted them as well as I can, and got an impregnated silver polish cloth to buff up the key work. They keys weren't too bad, but starting to go a bit black in places.
My question now is: how to buff the bell rings - the cloth doesn't do anything on them. Would they be a different material? They are pretty tarnished. Purely cosmetic I know, but...
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The Clarinet BBoard
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