Author: Mark Charette
Date: 1999-09-01 13:20
While a good mouthpiece, barrel, and ligature can help most any clarinet, there are some clarinets which were designed "out of tune" - they'll never be right, no matter how much you play with normal components.
My feelings (not fact, but an educated guess) is that instruments that have survived for 40 or more years and were being played during that time are better instruments than most of their chronological peers - a kind of "instrument evolution" if you will ("survival of the fittest"). This leads us to <i>believe</i> that the older instruments are better, but in reality all the instruments which didn't work as well have met an early (and deserved) death.
What led me to this little conclusion is research I did while looking for a grand piano a number of years back. I checked into the records of Steinway and those surviving until today. Everyone "knew" that older Steinways were better than todays but looking at the numbers that survived to this day shows peaks and valleys - Steinway made quite a few "clunkers" during certain periods. Only the best examples survived to be remarked upon, and that has added to the mystique.
My opinon, anyway, FWIW.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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