Switching allegiance!
I am going to confess something to you today that I’m not that proud of, but also, I kind of am…I have been playing my faithful Buffet R13 for 30+ years and yesterday she retired, officially! So I’m not proud that were a microbiologist to get on close terms to my instrument, I might be freaking out right now, but I am proud that I’ve looked after her so well that she’s really only just beginning to force my hand.
The last experience I had was courtesy of Daniel Bangham (Cambridge Wood, Wind and Reed) in his back shed - (I kid you not, 1988 he had a lean-to workshop attached to his house!) and a rather lovely grant from my local town who awarded it to me after reading my entry into their annual award for youngsters looking to pursue a career but needed funding for some area of this. At 17 I had little real understanding as to what I was even looking for in an instrument but with Daniel’s wisdom we left with a pair of R13s.
Yesterday was a whole different ball game. This time, my limitations were my own pocket, but my knowledge and experience was far deeper than 1988.
I went over to Dawkes in Maidenhead, why? Primarily because I’d had a huge urge to try out a Bakun, and sadly Howarth of London whilst also being IN London and harder to organise to get to, didn’t stock them. I could not recommend the service I received at Dawkes more highly! I had the undivided care and attention of at least two members of staff before I arrived, emailing me on a SUNDAY - that is real customer service, to ensure they had all my requirements and to prepare for my visit, then Hannah couldn’t do enough for me on the actual day.
I booked a two hour room for which I used most of it, partly because it was so much fun to really let rip playing somewhere where I wasn’t disturbing the rest of my house, and partly because it really did take me that long to decide!
The outcome, well, sadly, the Bakun was not my cup of tea at all. It looked every bit the professional beautiful instrument. I tried the Q, Q2 and the Protege, but as a Buffet girl, the alignment of the keys for me felt cumbersome. Perhaps if I’d picked this up earlier in my career, I could have worked with it. That was a miserable moment!
The others I had to look at were a Yamaha, a Buffet R13, a Gala, a Vintage and a Selmer Presence.
I spent about the first ten minutes just picking them up and holding them minus the mouthpiece to see if I could feel any difference. The Buffet’s all felt familiar, the Yamaha was also a nice feel, but the Selmer felt a little deeper in the inset of the lower reg keys, so I thought I’d probably not like it and resort to the Buffet again.
Well, what can I say? Fairly quickly I rejected the Vintage and the R13 (weird!) but the remaining contenders were making it tricky.
The music I selected to put the instruments to the test were:
Horowitz - for genre, jazz style, tricky runs but some real rich tones needed
Lutoslowski, - staccato practice in mvt 1 - repetition -will the pitch hold
Copland, - get those high notes - a real great trial for high, ppppp and warmth of tone.
Milhaud, - Scaramouche - just why the heck not!
Saint Saens - technicality, fluency, do I really like that very slightly deeper recess in the lower keys - apparently yes I really do!
I don’t know if there is any right or wrong way to choose, so I tried them on the passages I find tricky to see how they felt on my fingers, then I tried the passages that are a challenge from a sound perspective (leaps over 2 octaves or quiet passages in the top register etc). I also recorded my sound and played it back.
Eventually I eliminated the Yamaha and was left with just the two:
I messaged friends who didn’t help (ha ha - they never really do when you actually want them to make the decision for you, one suggested that he really liked a nice yummy Buffet! Never trust a trumpeter!). Perhaps I should have taken a friend with me who plays clarinet?
I even played around with the acoustics of the room to see whether playing in the Royal Albert Hall would enlighten me (or my playing)…
Anyway, eventually this really, really tight contest was pipped for my style of playing by the Selmer Presence. For me, the tone quality in the upper register just slightly won over.
What would I advise? I suppose the following tips:
Make sure you take a range of music to try in a range of genres - some instruments really do sound better for particular styles of music.
If you have a limited budget, make sure they DO NOT give you ones over that, you may have to re-mortgage!
Remember this is to do not only with the instrument, but also with how you play. A conversation with a friend afterwards who was with me at university, revealed that whilst she’d been a Selmer player all through her uni days, she had converted to Buffet…this is YOU and how you create your sound.
Take other mouthpieces and reed combos if you have them as you may find this alters tone and your perspective. I am playing a Selmer with, believe it or not, an Eddie Daniel’s Bakun mouthpiece and a size 3 Wood and Stone reed (quite an open but rich sounding combination imo)
Record your sound if you can and/or take a clarinet friend or teacher.
So, there you are, even after 30 years of playing experience, buying a new instrument can be quite a daunting experience that brings one out in the colly-wobbles!!