 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2013-09-17 13:56
Advocates of the "things ain't what they used to be" principle claim that the quality of African blackwood has gone down these last 30 years or so. Also, that the wood isn't aged and dried for a long enough period. Do you think this is true?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-09-17 14:39
My observation is that this is certainly the case. In my assortment of instruments the quality of the wood in the older ones is generally better. It's denser, far more close-grained and irregularities in the wood are almost unheard of. I've also found that in older instruments the wood quality of the joints was the same, whereas on some modern instruments there is variation in quality between upper and lower joints. Note that some makers do maintain the quality, at least on their better instruments
Tony F.
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Author: JJAlbrecht
Date: 2013-09-17 14:45
THe problem is that the trees are cut down younger than before, so as to meet the demand. Additionally, the instrument makers are not letting the wood season for as long. This means the wood is more likely to crack.
Jeff
“Everyone discovers their own way of destroying themselves, and some people choose the clarinet.” Kalman Opperman, 1919-2010
"A drummer is a musician's best friend."
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Author: cyclopathic
Date: 2013-09-17 15:48
@Tony
in some WWII era instruments wood is pretty bad. Many of them did not survive, so in retrospect it looks better then it was.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2013-09-17 16:33
Tough to say.
The most modern horn I own now is a 1981 Selmer 10S--all my others are 1950s and older.
My perception was that the Buffets I owned (c. 1991) were poor quality wood compared to the Selmers, that the older Selmers were better than the newer ones, and that the very best wood quality were my Fritz Wurlitzers from the '50s.
Hardly enough data to draw broad conclusions, though.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2013-09-17 18:31
In the best old instruments the wood not sawn but split with an axe so that the resulting billet followed the grain of the wood.
The wood was also allowed to season naturally for a decent period rather than the kiln drying used frequently in more modern times.
Most instruments, including the student ones, up to 1950s were made of wood so that the maker could select the very best wood for the top grade instruments and use the rest on the lower grades.
I have several clarinets from the 1940s on and in my perception the wood in the older ones is definitely better.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-09-17 18:51
Even the old Mazak keyed Regents, B&H "77"s and other B&H clarinets from the '50s had much better quality granadilla than that seen on a lot of new instruments. The only thing that let them down was the Mazak keywork.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2013-09-17 21:50
At a recent Clarinetfest, one of the Buffet regional reps mentioned a fact which caused me a bit of concern. He said that all the best billets of grenadilla (so-called "Grade A" stock) are now being used for the Prestige, Tosca, Divine lines, while the next best grenadilla stock ("Grade B") was currently being used for the R-13's.
Thus, if the quality, or grade of wood concerns you, perhaps this is even more of a reason to seek out the older R-13's of the 60's and 70's, since at that time it was the only top of the line clarinet Buffet was making, and was constructed with the highest grade wood Buffet had available.
It's also no secret that today's Buffet clarinets are aged less time than in previous generations and are heavily dyed to conceal some of the filler used to even out the grain...GBK
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Author: ruben
Date: 2013-09-18 06:40
Everybody's comment is very interesting, factual and to the point. This deterioration of quality of wood, which nobody denies, wouldn't matter if it didn't result in poorer sound, more wood cracking and warping. In the French company I work for, we have a thirty-year old stock of excellent grenadilla, so this doesn't effect us too much for the moment, but will soon enough. We have tried working with other types of wood (in this, we are not unique), but the results haven't been totally convincing acoustically. Violet wood has fantastic acoustic properties, but cracks. Mopane is just about as dense as grenadilla, is pleasant to work with and stable, but produces a rather light sound. Olive wood is very sweet-toned, but robs you of your dynamics: you play a constant mp. We're not out of the woods yet: pun intended!
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2013-09-18 13:26
I was a documentary several years ago on this subject. I should how long it takes for the trees to grow, I believe it was about 60 years but I'm not sure now, and that the mature trees are not very large. It also explained how much of the wood was being chopped down for firewood by the natives of the region in Africa. There is a shortage of African black wood which is why many manufactures are working with other woods now. We will run out of the blackwood at some point.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: cyclopathic
Date: 2013-09-18 23:51
> The wood was also allowed to season naturally for a decent period rather than the kiln drying used frequently in more modern times.
I remember seeing P-M ad where they mention 15 year seasoned hand selected wood for their top of the line, 10 years for step down. Nevertheless, our Empire made out of "purple grenadilla" (kingwood?) had cracked but had been masterfully pinned, capped and capped again with identical grain/color wood, presume at the factory.
The other reason could be that the best available wood has been already poached, so what we have now is the 2nd best, or the one which wasn't feasible to collect prior. Many areas which were logged do not have any commercially viable wood left, and while planting new trees helps they are not given enough time to produce best wood, and they are not growing in the way which could yield denser grain.
Planting trees closer would result in slower growth rates and would yield denser wood. And while this would also allow to collect more wood from the same area, it would double time to harvesting, which would make investments not feasible.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2013-09-19 00:45
Why don't we call it Mpingo?
"African hardwood" must surely be ambiguous, as there must be many hardwoods grown in Arfica.
And how did it ever come to be called grenadilla in the West.
Is it called grenadilla at all outside the world of musical instruments?
Is it called grenadilla at all in countries where it is grown?
(BTW Granadilla - with an "a" - is passionfruit.)
And this is interesting reading.
http://www.ridenourclarinetproducts.com/grenadillamyth.htm
Post Edited (2013-09-19 00:47)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-09-19 08:47
African blackwood, grenadilla, mpingo, dalbergia melanoxylon, ... so many different names for one and the same thing.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kthln.hnsn
Date: 2013-09-19 12:43
All I know is that my "Artist" student model Sears Roebuck Catalog clarinet from the 50-60's plays and sounds so much better than my 5 year old Buffet E11 (which probably isn't too hard to improve on that clarinet in the first place). Considering I bought the Sears one for $60 and the Buffet for far more. It also doesn't help that there was a fire in the Buffet warehouse quite a ways back, I believe, so from what I understand that depleted a lot of the nice aged wood. Correct me if I'm wrong about that?
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2013-09-20 09:33
Perhaps the clarinet needs some decent servicing.
And perhpas a different person would prefer the other.
Anyway, I would not place the credit on the timber. The minuteae of the bore will make far more difference.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-09-20 10:04
Buffet E11 clarinets were never made by Buffet - they were made in Germany by Schreiber, so a fire in Buffet's own warehouse wouldn't have had any impact on them.
The E11 France was launched a little while back which has since been replaced by the E12 France, both of which are made in the former Leblanc factory.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2013-09-20 14:54
Much of the wood in the antique clarinets isn't African blackwood (grenadilla / Mpingo). It's a Jamaican ebony species known as cocus, now so close to extinct that it's no longer available for making clarinets. As far as I know, nobody's farming it. I have some cocus clarinets from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That wood is truly black and very heavy, with grain so fine and so dense it could almost be mistaken for matte-finished plastic at a quick glance.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Paula S
Date: 2013-09-20 19:35
Call me silly but there are lots of old clarinets with super wood quality around. Yes maybe they could be warped but someone with real skill could surely make them into super 'new' ones?
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-09-20 19:53
While that can be done, the problem is most people tend to want brand new shiny clarinets over perfectly workable older ones which may be better in the long term.
Another problem is persuading people to put things into perspective when most can't justify paying out for a full overhaul on an older instrument they paid little for, even though it was most likely a decent model in its day and still would be if they spent money on having it done up to be better than it was when it left the factory.
Only the other year I tried to make someone understand that they can pay out more for a brand new student clarinet compared to a used older professional level one. They could only see the cost being the determining factor and would rather spend more on a brand new intermediate model than a bit less on an older used pro model. I gave up as some people just can't seem to see reason.
I've bought knackered out old Selmers off eBay and rebuilt them for myself and play them as my main clarinets. Even with a full replate and rebuild, the end price will most likely be well under that of a comparable new pro model if you add it all up.
If only people could see past the 'But it only cost me £XX.00' bit.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: ruben
Date: 2013-09-21 06:44
Not only is this not silly, but a very intriguing idea. The problem-apart from the warping that you mentioned-is that the older instruments-from the thirties, for example-weren't very well in tune. A lot of work would have to be done on the bore and tone- holes. People didn't seem to care quite as much about intonation as they do now. Or maybe the instrumentalist was expected to play the instrument in tune by doing whatever he had to do and nobody expected the instrument to be automatically in tune. As I work for a company with a thirty-year-old stock of wood that will run out soon enough, I think maybe the best solution is to find wood that has been lieing about unused somewhere for several decades in somebody's workshop; maybe wood that was originally intended to be used for furniture.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-09-21 06:59
A friend who makes plucked instruments obtains much of his wood from old upright pianos. Some of them are over a century old and well past their playing days, but the timber in them is excellent and absolutely stable.
Tony F.
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Author: ruben
Date: 2013-09-21 09:12
Tony
Very interesting! I imagine, however, that the wood wouldn't be thick enough to make a clarinet.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-09-21 10:10
Ruben,
If you used the timber from old wood-framed pianos it would probably be large enough, but the wrong wood. They use a lot of oak and walnut, and also some mahogany and teak.
Tony F.
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Author: Paula S
Date: 2013-09-21 21:15
Is there any way of chobbling up old blackwood and reconstituting it???
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Author: Ed Lowry
Date: 2013-09-23 23:56
In some sense, isn't that what Buffet does with it's greenline series? Grenadilla wood ground up and reconstituted in a plastic (and by plastic I mean malleable) binding material?
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-09-24 00:05
Reconstituted granadilla/blackwood/mpingo/whatever you want to call it is no longer timber in that it no longer has the structure or strength of the original article. It has become a composite just like chipboard or MDF and doesn't exhibit the tensile strength as natural timber.
Hence Greenline tenons being so bloody weak. FACT!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-09-24 03:45
The use of grenadilla in greenline instruments has always mystified me. Once the wood is ground up it loses any characteristics it might have that would contribute to the sound produced. About the only thing remaining of the original wood is the colour. Buffet could probably have achieved the same results using ground peanut husks, and ground bamboo would provide more strength. I suspect it owes more to clever marketing than to technical advance.
Tony F.
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Author: Fishamble
Date: 2013-09-24 09:09
Marketing, and the fact that they must have a lot of waste grenadilla wood on hand from the machining of whole-wood instruments.
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