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Re: How to buy a new clarinet

Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2023-08-18 01:33

Hi Dan,

I think this is a wonderful idea for a thread.

I'm no professional, but I wondered if I could give a view from the adult learner perspective to help the 40-somethings coming along after me?

I started on a very broken old instrument. I spent the first year being told by literally everyone that I was wasting my time and needed a new clarinet. It was hard, because the vintage instrument had a lovely sound and had huge sentimental value. The new plastic student horns sounded flat in comparison. Also I had no money.

However, I had really got the bug from playing my rubbishy horn. Eventually, some money came along quite suddenly, and I made a snap decision to go to the shop, try all the £2500 horns and buy one there and then.

With hindsight I should have explained to the shop man that I was planning to make a purchase that day. He definitely thought I was taking the mickey when I spent a couple of hours trying horns in the test room.

I already had a good mp, which helped. I also took my tuner.

For me, it was very obvious which horn I should buy. With the Selmer ones I couldn't reach the keys - the ergonomics were just not right for me.

The Buffets had good ergonomics, but the sound had no soul. I was really suprised by that, because I had heard that they were best. I realise now that this was probably just a feature of the individual horns, but I didn't know that then.

I tried a £1800 and £2500 Yamaha and was perplexed that the £1800 one was the one with the soul. I really echo what Paul said about feeling a connection with the horn. This was the biggest factor for me.

The more expensive one had a lovely gold twiddly bit on the barrel, but it didn't sound nice. The cheaper one had a more basic picture on the barrel that had been mostly worn away, but the emotional connection with the sound was good.

My husband came that day too, and he said he liked the cheaper Yamaha sound too. We swapped back and forth many many times, and it was clear that the cheaper Yamaha was the best.

I asked the shop man, and he said that it was because I wasn't experienced enough to get the best out of the expensive instruments.

Anyway, he very kindly let me borrow the £1800 Yamaha to test at home. I spent a week agonising about whether it was the right thing to do, since I was so attached to the vintage horn, and it was such a lot of money.

Hank Lehrer was extemely kind and chatted to me about it online right through the week, and I took the instument to a professional for evaluation.

The professional told me to take the Yamaha horn back to the shop and keep using my vintage horn. But after a week I came to realise that my vintage horn had problems that I had not been aware of before. The pinkie keys really didn't work, and the instrument was badly out of tune with itself. It was also a high pitched instrument, which I was playing in a not-high-pitched orchestra.

The yamaha was a little flat, but it was the same amount flat across the whole instrument, so fixable with a shorter barrel.

Anyway, in the end I bought the Yamaha, and that was definitely the right decision for me. It is only now, about 4 years later, that I really understand how critical that decision was. The Yamaha does have less soul than the vintage instrument, but it is actually a playable instrument. The vintage instrument has so many holes in it that is like a colander, and is really badly out of tune.

Sometimes I get the vintage instrument out again, and it is like riding a beautiful, much loved, rusty penny farthing bicycle. When I go back to the Yamaha, it runs like a motorcycle. It almost plays itself by comparison, and is so nimble and just *works*.

It was quite a stressful change, but I'm glad I did it. I definitely had to go to a real shop to do this work too. Buying online from reviews wouldn't have got me a horn with a soul, and that turned out to be really important. Bizarrely it was also much cheaper, because it was the cheap one that sounded best.

I had to get the Yamaha leak proofed twice, four keys extended, and a new mp to get to where I am now, so having a good tech seems to be extremely important.

I hope that helps any other besotted 40-something clarinet newbies. :-)

Thanks for the excellent thread idea.

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