Author: m1964
Date: 2021-11-23 00:44
jcm499 wrote:
"I have gathered a general consensus that advances in acoustical design have improved the performance of modern clarinets—polycylindrical bores, undercut tone holes, and so on. Is this really so, to an appreciable degree?...
My first clarinet when I started playing was a then-current model Buffet E12 (Schreiber-made, circa 1998) with a polycylindrical bore and undercut toneholes. As a teenager, when I needed an “A” clarinet to play in orchestra, I got a then-current model Noblet 45 (circa 2006). As an adult, I bought myself a Selmer Centered Tone R series (1958).
...
the Centered Tone tunes the best of them, better than the polycylindrical Buffet...
...the average intonation results recorded for the new Selmer Privilege in an Arizona State University study are decidedly worse than what I get with my Centered Tone, a model with reputedly troublesome intonation...
Of course I would like to improve my tuning, but I am not convinced thousands of dollars on new equipment would help, nor am I convinced, based on my admittedly limited firsthand experience, about the acoustic inferiority of older clarinets.
What is the community’s firsthand experience with this?"
You asked a simple question (or maybe not so simple ) that requires not so simple answer.
Good points were given in the replies above.
I want to add that one or two particular instruments do not represent the whole line. The test done in AZ university was done on two instruments only and cannot be applied 100% to all Selmers.
Piano tuners rely on their ears, not on electronic tuner.
I asked one of them why and he replied: "It would not sound right if I tuned it (piano) with the tuner only". I believe that they make fourth interval a little wider, and fifth a little narrower, or vice versa...
Anyway, if you play in an orchestra, you need to be in tune with someone else, who may not be perfect. I remember how a timpani player was telling me that when he hit a specific note at the end of an aria he would have to hit the center of the timpani or it's edge, depending on what horn player was playing because that note was in unison with the horn. One horn player would be perfectly in pitch, and another one was always slightly sharp.
Regarding the money spent: there is a law of diminishing returns that (I believe) applies to the musical instrument.
$6K Tosca does not necessarily would be twice as good as a $3K R13. It could be but may not be as well.
Sometimes spending thousands of $$ may produce marginal improvement over your current instrument. Marginal for one player and great for another.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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