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Re: COP26

Author: Max S-D
Date: 2021-11-03 06:58

I've felt for a while now that the clarinet world is going to need to start figuring out its non-wood options for high end clarinets now. I would guess that clarinets are not making a big difference in the overall consumption of these woods compared to furniture, knife handles, etc, but I do suspect that there will come a time when Mpingo of sufficient quality isn't consistently available and we'll be forced to do move on if we haven't yet.

At this point, we know that a good clarinet doesn't have to be made of wood. Whether that's the hard rubber Ridenours or the Buffet's Greenline material, which is basically just resin. I don't think the sawdust filler is contributing much tonally to that wood, but it is a clever way of reusing what would go to waste and of lending it some marketing credence. I'd like to see more manufacturers look into new materials for their high end instruments, hopefully with an eye towards durability and sustainability.

It's usually interesting when engaged craftspeople have no choice but to veer away from "what we've always done." We've definitely seen kind of a renaissance of American handcrafted mouthpieces in the couple of years since Zinner shut down operations. Mouthpiece makers couldn't keep using those blanks, so they had no choice but to create new designs from the ground up. Now we have a lot of great and interesting mouthpieces on the market that are much more differentiated from each other.

I hope that clarinet manufacturers are up to the task in the same way. Or maybe this will be a chance for someone new to enter the market.

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COP26 new

SunnyDaze

2021-11-02 11:09