Disposable woodwinds

[Donn]

I like the comments from drummers - I'll take two. "You'll need to learn traditional grip. Overhand grip doesn't work on a flute."

[SousaWarrior9]

...you mean woodwinds aren't already disposable?

[WC8KCY]

In my opinion, much of what Selmer USA used to make was crap. Some of the crappiest Chinese stuff is about as good - if not a bit better.
Seriously, most of the Chino retail price $550 saxophones outplay Bundy’s...if outfitted with a playable mouthpiece and reed.
I’m quite proud of the plastic clarinets that I sell new. They are not Walmart cheap, but they are cheap...
...And it’s time to abandon the prepositional phrase “for the money”.

You're right on the money here, bloke.

Some years ago, the Taishan-built soprano saxes created something of a buzz in the saxophone community as nicely made horns that play quite well.

At the time, I was waiting for a nice fixer-upper Conn or Conn-stencil soprano to come along on eBay. I ordered a Taishan-built Conductor soprano to get by with until I had procured and overhauled a Conn. I conservatively upgraded the Taishan with a Yamaha 6C mouthpiece and American Plating ligature, and...

...it was (and is) so nice I never felt the need to continue pursuing a vintage Conn. The build quality does indeed shame many Elkhart-built student instruments with its meticulous solder work and beautiful, flawless lacquer. The only issues I had with mine were sketchy neck corks and a metal burr inside one of the necks at the tenon end.

The last new American-built instrument I purchased was a Leblanc 7250 clarinet. This was, at the time, Leblanc's top-of-the-line synthetic-bodied clarinet. The upper joint bore had a huge reamer gouge 3 mm wide by 1 mm deep that ran from the thumb tone hole all the way to the upper tenon. There were also blobs of plastic or adhesive protruding into the bore around the thumb tube. I was appalled, to say the least, and immediately returned the clarinet to its seller.

In both of the ensembles I play with, there's a growing number of Chinese and Vietnamese saxes (many in wild colors) topped with Otto Links. The guys who play 'em sound great, play in tune, and aren't having problems with the horns.

[jperry1466]

No disagreement with any of these posts, being the owner of a Chinese (Mack) CC tuba. A music dealer friend of mine says the traditional wind instrument manufacturers (Conn, Selmer, Yamaha, whatever) are pricing him and everyone else out of the band business, so the less expensive horns have a place, as long as they are good quality and can be repaired.

My only caveat, maybe no longer valid: I once had a very fine clarinet student (30+ years ago) whose parents wanted to step him up to an R-13 for his birthday, and got it for a ge price. The salesman, who was a professional clarinetist, almost backed out of the sale, saying, "I can make just as good a sound on a plastic Bundy." I said, "Bill, you could make a piece of garden hose sound good; this 15 year old kid can't, and he will make good use of this."

I would like to see that same youtube flute video done with high school students.

[Donn]

Plastic clarinets oboes with superb DIMENSIONS (just as with tuba mouthpieces) sound virtually the same as wood ones...and are much more consistent, and expansion/contraction is nearly nonexistent.

I believe someone (at a university music dept?) many years ago did some investigation into this, and found that the shape of tone holes matters quite a bit. The plastic ones were being made with a simple square edged hole, while wood ones were undercut to present a more rounded off inner edge. Easy to fix, and once done the plastic instruments sounded pretty much the same.

I like polypropylene. Have a Vito bass clarinet made of the stuff. No particular reason, there's just something about it.

[MaryAnn]

"Plastic clarinets oboes with superb DIMENSIONS (just as with tuba mouthpieces) sound virtually the same as wood ones...and are much more consistent, and expansion/contraction is nearly nonexistent."

My friend Brian Holmes who is a physicist and horn player says that it is the inner dimensions that determine everything. The more expensive instruments play better because they are more finished, and not because they are made of platinum or whatever. So a copy of something excellent, if it is an excellent copy, is going to play the same.

[WC8KCY]

Plastic clarinets oboes with superb DIMENSIONS (just as with tuba mouthpieces) sound virtually the same as wood ones...and are much more consistent, and expansion/contraction is nearly nonexistent.

BOTH Loree AND Fox offer PROFESSIONAL-grade plastic oboes...and Buffet offers plastic professional clarinets as well called "Green LinE"...I believe Buffet puts bits of ground-up (surely: from rejected slabs of ebony...??) wood in with their plastic...yes?

https://www.buffet-crampon.com/en/instr ... inets/r13/

Yep, Buffet's Green Line material has grenadilla sawdust in it.

Backun offers a synthetic-bodied Alpha clarinet that they once marketed as a clarinet that a professional would enjoy using in conditions not appropriate for a wooden clarinet. I have one in my studio, and it's superb.

That said, I also have a Yamaha YCL-20 clarinet that I had carefully reworked by Mike Lutley, former quality control technician at Yamaha's shuttered Grand Rapids facility. Among other tweaks, he carefully finished the tone holes and installed cork pads in the normally-closed upper joint tone holes. It's the best clarinet I have ever played. And...it's plastic.

Kenny Davern, a professional jazz clarinetist, played and recorded with a Conn 16N clarinet--a plastic horn--and even flaunted that fact on the liner notes on at least some of his albums.

Still, there are those who insist "if it ain't wood, it ain't good". They're just foolin' themselves.

[WC8KCY]

I like polypropylene. Have a Vito bass clarinet made of the stuff. No particular reason, there's just something about it.

Donn, I have a Boosey & Hawkes 1-10 clarinet made out of heavy PVC. As with your Vito bass, there's just something about it that's absolutely ideal for that particular clarinet. I wish I could get a modern soprano clarinet made out of whatever B&H used--it would be glorious.