Times
have changed. The urge to recondition clarinets and thereby get to
handle lovely instruments has always been balanced against the tedium
of the cleaning and polishing. The 74th and last is finished and sold.
Putting the cleaned and repaired bits back together, setting up and
testing is still great fun but I can only do that after all the pain!
The scales have tilted back to modelling and electronics for the time
being, although if anyone has an interesting project or an insatiable
need, I might well be persuaded. This page lists what I have that
should be sold. I shall probably be tempted again occasionally, but I
think it will probably be the top end of the quality range; I still
want to try Buffet and SML saxes for instance. If a low C bass clari
appears ...
So, I haven't played my alto for a couple of years
now. I prefer the Yanagisawa tenor and worry that my meagre talents are
spread too thin with both saxes and the alto and bass clarinets. I
shall never properly learn to play any of them but all of them is just
ridiculous. Common sense says that something should go, so its all of
them!
I have bought a EWI 5000. At least my tone can be decent without hours
of gym work, and I can twiddle the setup without getting dirty! The
problem now is that I have so much ww oriented stuff from mouthpieces
to dozens of special jigs, cutters, spares, cork, pads and so on. It's
all not worth a lot but I don't want to just junk it when someone else
could get some mileage out of it.
Like a gizmo I made for accurately measuring mouthpiece tip and lay but
also ramp heights at repeatable (and so comparable) positions. There
must be one similarly kinky person in the world who could use it!