Untitled Document
     
Advertisement Click to advertise with us!
     

Nice One for SOTSDO

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
Administrator
clearschreiber-BH-C.jpg


Described as "Clear Schreiber-Boosey & Hawkes C Albert Clarinet." Well, Buffet did sell the clear B12/E11 horns ....
 
Regardless of provenance or derivation...

...these things always sicken me, for the metal copper and I do not get along very well. I don't know what the nature of the plating is on the key work, but in my one encounter with one (not played, just handled) it felt like a Buffet and affected my fingertip skin like a piece of 1/2" copper water supply pipe. Neither was a pleasant experience.

The one that I saw was a Boehm system, not of the Albert or Oehler family. It also lacked the stylized bear on the case.

Were these created as a marketing ploy, or for some bizarre marching band program? Whatever their purpose, they seem to attract notoriety where- and whenever they appear.

Never played one though...
 
I've mentioned that I had a Buffet B11 Bb version of this -- standard Boehm system, though. I bought it because:

* It played very nicely
* It was pretty cheap
* It looked kewl

I don't remember if the keywork was copper plated, then lacquered or just plated. I don't remember it feeling odd. IIRC, I only used a Vandoren B40 mouthpiece on it. I thought about crystal, but the expense drove me away.

I traded it in a couple years later for a new YCL-34.

============

I can't say it was a marketing ploy, per se. It's true that the Vito Dazzlers (different color clarinets) came out a bit before this. However, SML used to sell a clear oboe with the same copper keywork and Selmer and Kohlert experimented with clear horns in the past. I keep hearing that there's even a clear bass clarinet out there, somewhere.

I can say that I created a huge fuss when, a few years earlier, I tried to use my Pan American metal clarinet in band. I was told I couldn't because it looked too different, so the director would have freaked out over a clear horn. I played my way out of that problem -- i.e. I sounded good enough that the director had to keep me. I then switched to bass clarinet and eventually to bari sax.
 
Back
Top Bottom