Author: LonDear
Date: 2008-07-29 03:41
There are frequent threads here about the merits of wood (mostly grenadilla) versus hard rubber. I will relate my experience with many materials over many years then offer up questions for even more extreme materials that seem viable.
I started clarinet at age 5 playing on a grenadilla clarinet.
In my teens, after learning lathes and drills, I tried experiments with sycamore, maple, oak, birch and elm and remember that there were big differences between the various woods with how easy they were to work with versus how good they sounded. What I could not have realized at that point were how the cut of the wood and the aging can affect the playability. I also had no way of fitting keys on those monstrosities, but could get decent scales and learned to adjust hole placement. I quickly gave up the idea of being able to create my own "clarinets".
In college I learned that clarinets had not always been made of grenadilla, so I embarked on a search to play some of the earlier woods and other materials just to see how they compared. Here are some of the things that I found over the last 30 years.
Pearwood/Boxwood - pretty sound, but not a strong sound. I haven't been able to find one with modern keywork and would not expect to without going to a custom maker such as S. Fox.
Rosewood - a great, smooth sound without much of a zing - a bit darker sound than grenadilla
Cocobolo - I have coco barrells but have never tried a whole clarinet, but I know they exist (O&W?). I experience quite a bit better articulation on a coco barrell, maybe slightly better than a hard rubber barrell.
Grenadilla - no comment needed, the most popular material currently and what I thought was the ultimate material until 16 months ago.
Plastic - beginner material - works well and holds the keywork in place...
Greenline - I own one of these that I hand picked from several for my wife and the intonation is just great, but I could never get the power I wanted. She's a section player so it was OK for her. I got her an actual R13 (all wood) in the last few years. I know that the model could make a big difference (E11on the greenline), so the greenline designation might not have been the problem. I think that the greenline concept is really good; my experience with it is very limited.
Metal - I used to buy any metal clarinet I could get my hands on and "try" to restore them. Some of them had been sitting unused for so long that a quick repad put them into perfect playing condition. I just loved the sound (various materials), feel and playability of some (very few) of them. They seemed like the ultimate clarinets, whether brass or some unknown silver-like maybe-nickel composition. I've never come across one of the true silver ones. These were so easy to work on because of all of the room between the body and keys. If metal clarinets come back, I will definately try one, if it is less than $7961 (see below).
I've tried one of the Buffet clear (lucite?) clarinets with the copper colored keys. It played about as good as any low-end wood Buffets and just looked SO COOL, but as much as I would like to have one, I can't get anyone to part with one at a reasonable price. The clearness, which quickly changes to foginess quickly changes from way cool to kind of weird.
Another amazing clarinet that I can't get an owner to part with is a Howarth that is some kind of composite that has superior keywork, the ability to cut through any ensemble with a rich warm tone and adapts to about any mouthpiece. I don't know if these were experimental models, but they don't seem to be offered by Howarth anymore. It is quite heavy, however, heavier than the Lyrique. I may have problems with a heavy clarinet in a few years, but for now, this horn seems to be the only one that could be better for me than the Lyrique.
For now, the Lyrique is THE horn (for me): C/Bb/A/Low-C-Bass, but I still have to use wood for Eb and Alto, and plastic is all I can afford for contra-alto.
NOW - onto the experimental:
Titanium - Hanson has the T-7-T model which sounds VERY intriguing, but at $8000 for a Bb, I want to hear some reviews, if any really are out there. These should be light. These should last a lifetime, at the very least. These should be able to survive the most brutal orchestra pits.
Carbon-Fiber - string instruments are being made of C-F with very nice results. Even the keywork should be able to be made of the material. These would be VERY light.
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