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Finally, a decent, in the bell, clarinet stand!

SOTSDO

Old King Log
Staff member
CE/Moderator
Over the last twenty years or so, I've played very little A clarinet. Even when I was doing a lot of orchestral stuff down here in the Houston area, it was always as the hired gun bass clarinet player or a sax play for Gershwin; down here, the regular clarinet seats have always been held by long-term occupants.

As a result, I've had little call for more than one clarinet peg, which has stayed firmly attached to my various doubling stands. I had a couple of Pak-i-stand folding pegs in my clarinet case at one point, but I ended up giving them away to other players who needed a stand when they had none.

For the first time in a long while, I'm playing a show (In To The Woods) where all that I'm playing is Bb and A soprano clarinet. I had been toting my folding bass clarinet stand with two clarinet pegs attached to the legs. It works, but it's cumbersome and odd looking in the bargain.

After a bit of searching on amazon.com, I decided to take a chance and order a pair of the Hercules in-the-bell folding stands. Although not a big fan of Hercules products (I own a combo baritone/alto/tenor stand, as well as one of their standard clarinet pegs), I have to say that I am more than pleased with their in-bell product.

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All of the other "in bell" stands that I have tried have been adequate, but only just. Some are made in a flimsy fashion, others don't have a sufficient "footprint" to assure stability, and some have been too light to stay in one place when you grab a horn in a hurry. (Pak-i-stands are particularly bad in this regard.)

These Hercules pegs combine all of the good aspects of the other pegs, but without any of the bad ones. They have a wide footprint, but without any of the spidery legs used by the others. You can actually see the things on the floor, due to the yellow color used in the Hercules products; most of the others are black as coal. They have a spring locator peg and a flocked cone upon which the bell rests, not a hard plastic surface. And, they are solid - no springy legs that will go skating across the floor when you look to set a horn down in a hurry.

In short, they are a great product, better than their other equipment. If only their other stands were half as good...
 
Linky. $24.46.

The price is probably the only thing working against it. I definitely like the way this thing looks, but the standard in-bell stand starts at $9.
 
In in-bell clarinet pegs, as in so many other things, you get what you pay for. With a $1,500 clarinet (and one that is hard to replace to boot), a cheap stand will work but you are still taking a chance.

When full Boehm Selmer Series 9 soprano clarinets in A, Bb and Eb come back on the market at 1960s prices, I'll switch back to the $9.95 products. Until then, better safe than sorry...
 
I like this guy:
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which folds down completely flat, and is kept in a folder with my music. It's pretty sturdy, has nonslip rubber feet, and still comes with me everywhere even though my case doesn't allow for an in-bell stand.
 
I like this guy:
View attachment 1609
which folds down completely flat, and is kept in a folder with my music. It's pretty sturdy, has nonslip rubber feet, and still comes with me everywhere even though my case doesn't allow for an in-bell stand.

The problem I have with these is they weigh nothing. They can get stuck in the bell (who has time to remove the stand from the instrument in a pit?), and move around quite a bit when there is no instrument on them. Stability with an instrument on it is not as secure as I prefer either. I have one in the closet and the chances of it ever being put into service are pretty slim.

They have their place, but more as a display tool, not a performance tool imo.
 
They do work, but with way too many negatives to be the best in the pack.

These were what I gave away over the years. Even with the non-skid feet, they tend to get bumped about. And, the amount of force to tip a horn over on one is very, very low.

Don't get me wrong. My stand when I have to play the baritone is a monster made of oak 2"x 4"s, shaped like an "H" and requiring huge amounts of force to tip. On that rack, the clarinets and flutes ride on threaded rods with rubber bell fittings and upright pegs, securely screwed into metal fittings on the rack. Someone might push on a clarinet hard enough to break it in half, but they won't tip it over.

Even when it's just the bass clarinet and clarinets, I use the same threaded rods which screw into fittings on the legs of the bass clarinet stand. A bit easier to tip, but still very stable.

It's only when I'm playing clarinet alone that I would use these, and (of all of the portable, in the bell storage items) they are the most stable of the bunch.
 
An update and to share in case someone else is in the market for a single stand, I just purchased one of these stands new on the bay for $16.50 shipped from musicstorelive using the "make offer" button.

I am hoping this will live in my single case, and not join the others in the closet.
 
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I use the K&M. Good stand, much more stable than the Pak-i-stand. But it is too long to store in the bell. It travels in my music stand/lights/music glasses bag.
 
Looks the same, but mine is 6" long. My Leblanc bell is 4 1/4 inches. I really like the stand, but it doesn't fit inside the bell in the case, which is a very minor problem considering all the stuff I pack to help my 72-year-old eyes read the charts.
 
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