Author: D
Date: 2009-04-23 16:54
Steve,
I too started on a Hanson student clarinet......perhaps they trained us to play with our little fingers in a totally different position!
Seriously though, I played a number of admittedly knocked about A clarinets when I first joined an orchestra (loaned by orchestra) most of which were Buffet and a few were Boosey and Hawkes in various incarnations. I loose track of who owns which company, but they all had similar logos.
Anyway, disregarding the poor state of repair of some of the instruments which was to be expected, what got to me was the general key layout. Everything was in slightly the wrong place, especially the trill keys and banana keys and as you say, some of the little finger keys difficult to reach. Main keys tended to be at slight angles which made them awkward. I would assume one or two have been bashed up at some point, but not a single instrument was comfortable to play in terms of layout. It's just the shape of your hands related to the instrument.
Thank goodness there are different layouts available, we all have different shaped hands.
A few years ago now when I was buying an A clarinet (a Hanson!) I had a chat with the owner Alastair and he said at the time they were thinking about having two sets of keys available to cater to different hand shapes, ie a general one for bigger hands and one for smaller - slightly longer little finger keys, that sort of thing. No idea if this idea ever came to fruition or if it went by the wayside like so many good but not necessarily practical ideas.
Since then I have tried a few friends clarinets of various types and don't remember ever having so much difficulty with the layout as I did with the Buffet (and a few Boosey and Hawkes). Interestingly, when I first took up the flute, that was a Buffet which I never got along with. Was very quickly traded in for a second hand Yamaha which did me very well for a few years of hard use in senior school until it fell apart and was deemed 'knackered' by the repairman.
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