Just had my clarinet 'looked at' seriously in preparation for my grade 8, and very glad I did. The chap told me it had cracked in two places, one on the barrell and the second on the first part of the body. He has put some kind of filler in the cracks, repadded all, taken all the clicking away and I'm really pleased. Has anyone else out there had cracks filled in ? (sounds painful) and do they last forever ? He told me it was because I played the instrument a lot. This cost me about £65 all up, guaranteed 6 months !!

wow! Good job you got it repaired!

Very lucky! It's good that you play it that much!

Good luck for grade 8.

Thanks Oddball, I'm going to do my best!!

Of course you are, and you are going to pass with flying colours!!

Flying colours might be a slight stretch ..... the aural's still in Chinese as far as I'm concerned !

Hey who cares about that!! Just guess! And focus more on the other stuff!

Aural sucks!


SAAB forever

WHAT SENSE YOU TALK !!!
I'll knock 'em dead with my pieces !!!!

Woo go you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad you got it repaired, and good luck!

Car Expert

For a full service of a wooden clarinet including repadding, that is very, very cheap!

You probably knew about the cracks. They're impossible to miss.

Sometimes you can remove clicking by simply cleaning around the tone holes with a cotton bud - preferably dipped in a very mild detergent or alcohol solution.

Smirnoff blue label is good.

You got a bargain. Good luck with the exam!

Steve

PS Aurals in chinese? THE ABRSM must be doing well in Peking!

As a learner of Chinese, and a teacher of clarinet and piao - I can assure you that learning Chinese is far easier than grade 8 aural (and I've got perfect pitch!)

Bought my daughter a buffet R13 about 8 months ago. She has really enjoyed playing it and has been careful not to overplay (or so she tells me!) and dries it carefully each time that she plays . However she has had a lot of trouble with swollen joints and sometimes the clarinet has stuck together at the end of a band rehearsal.
I have just had the clarinet looked at by a professional woodwind repairer and he has fixed the joints but also said that wooden clarinets CANNOT be overplayed.[He charged £20 for which I was very grateful!]
But he was most insistent that the instrument could not be overplayed and that Buffet clarinets in particular are prone to swollen joints.

My wooden clarinet is certainly not overplayed lol

The newer R13s have this problem. It's something that has been discussed on the woodwind.org forum a lot.

It may be due to the wood not being seasoned as long as it used to be, but I think it's just the cork is a different type and slightly too thick. The repairer probably sanded it down a fraction.

You can help by using a product, thinner than normal cork grease, to keep the cork soft. I haven't got the webpage, but it's called 'Slick' and sold by The Doctor's products. He also sells other things including a bore oil that has amazing reviews.



That's right. There's a phenomenon called 'Played out' which applies to old clarinets, but not everyone agrees about it.

With wooden clarinets, the problems start when you carry it about from place to place. Changes in temp and humidity can make it stick, change pitch, and even crack. You have to get to the venue and leave the clarinet to acclimatise to the new conditions before putting it together.

Of course, in the fresh air, you always use a plastic model!

The R13 is a beautiful instrument. Experimenting with mouthpieces, barrels and ligatures can make it even more beautiful. Keep your eye on Ebay, and if you see a James Pyne barrel, snap it up. They make the clarinet sing!

Steve

My clarinet is a Buffet Crampon RC, and my joints get sticky as well !!
Thankyou for your words of encouragement stevensfo, they're all so welcome, and as for the chinese part of the exam, best to say nothing .... my clarinet is working so well now, the only reason for a poor performance just has to be ME !!!

Don't forget: the aural is a weeny, weeny part of it all.
I'm glad you got your clarinet serviced. My best whistle is away for retuning and general overhaul, and I am missing it very much. However, the backup one got done a year or two ago, and the result was so amazing that I have no doubt the best one will also return to me vastly improved. (And in tune!) Just think of the edge it will give you, having had the work done...
Good luck.

thankyou anacrusis, I'm just a bit worried now because the cyst on the palm of my left hand I had drained just 2 weeks go is back in its full spleandor, and hurting, got to go to a hand hospital after the exam to hopefully have it removed . aaahhh

yikes!

I should think if it gets to the stage where it's really going to affect your playing you might be able to get a refund or maybe get entered next term instead if your doc suggests it?

I've worked too hard for this exam, if I don't do it now, I'll give up. The hand will have to put up with it, and then after I can get it sorted. I hope it will hang on in there Sarah Flute

Understandable!

I do hope it goes well

thankyou, sarah flute, I had a super lesson last night with my teacher (one of them) it was constructive and usefull, 2 weeks before the exam. You might have heard of her Atarah Ben Tovim, being a flute player you should have come across her name - I feel so lucky to have her as a teacher, she's such a great personality !!

Oooya. Rest it up as much as you dare. Do some aural practice, or one-handed scales (scales just on one half of the clarinet? well, all right, maybe not), or practice the articulation with the music but without the instrument....or try out a flotation tank. I don't think any form of pressure dressing is likely to help if it has re-formed. I've crossed my fingers for you, since the diploma is only in embryonic stages of preparation.

Oh no you don't!

Life is too short. You don't take the exam. Or you fail it. Big ****** deal. So you take it again. I've learned just as much from failed exams as from those I passed. You should never give up. We all have hurdles in our life. They come in many forms. Yours is a cyst on the hand. Believe me, those hurdles can be much worse!

Never, ever, be a 'giver-upper'!

And in twenty years time, when you're rich and famous, you'll remember my advice.

Mainly by the letters asking for my commission!

Steve

Ok ok stevensfo, if I can't do it because of my hand, or I fail, I'll go for it again ! (I f only that in 20 years I'll be VERY WRINKLY), You are absolutely right, giving up is not an option, thankyou for reminding me of that, tonight, my hand is going to be wrapped in clay, a cabbage leaf, clingfilm and a bandage, for 5 nights I'm trying this strange French remedy !!! We'll see !!!!
thanks for crossing your fingers anacrusis !! (What is the meaning of your name ?)

"up-beat"

thought of it whilst feeling anything but.
wondered about using it as a name for my wife-and-husband ensemble when performing, as putting my married surname out on posters (my first name being weird and therefore noticeable) risks my patients finding me in the phone book. However, I found a heavy metal rock sort of group thing had got there before me. We still have no name. Luckily we still only play in public about once a year.

what does your husband play anacrusis ?

Keyboard - he maintains harpsichords professionally, and we were lucky enough to have been offered an instrument which had been propped on its keyboard end in an acquaintance's garage a couple of years ago. It was a bit of a bird's nest of wire inside, but my husband did some scary things to it with a large chisel to make it transpose (between A=415, 440 and another pitch, I forget which) and restrung and revoiced it, so now we can play together. We have a piano too, made by a friend of his, so he can also have a shot at Schumann and other later music.

what tonality is your whistle in ?!?

My beautiful bestest ( currently much missed as still being retuned etc) boxwood Moeck Denner copy - A=440 Hz. Bought it before we had a harpsichord, so needed to be able to be chummed by a piano.
Backup maple treble, pearwood tenor, boxwood descant, all ditto. I do have a treble at A=415 Hz, but it suffers terribly from clogging, even after treatment with nasty soapy stuff, so I have to stuff it down my jumper for half an hour before playing. Not elegant at concerts!

Am I a bit thick, but is your whistle a recorder ?

Not thick.
Yes, a recorder.
The penny whistle in our house doesn't work very well.
My teacher plays penny whistle, three-holed pipe and goddnes knows what else, as well as recorders- as they all work the same way, they just get called whistles.

I owe my love of music to the recorder!I played tenor and descant recorders for all my childhood, enjoyed them immensely,, Now, when I hear a good treble recorder sounding out some beautiful renaissance music, it brings a tear to my eye ! I've just invested in a really nice descant in rosewood, and I love it

Ooh, lovely. I don't know why it should be that recorder players should so often become acquisitive when it comes to new instruments, apart from the fact that they don't tolerate being played for so very long. I can feel the need for a new tenor coming on...The renaissance music thing I fully identify with - though I can't ever seem to count it when I try - spend half my time flat on my face from having tripped over hemiolas. I'm not sure that bar lines actually have any meaning or value when it comes to the very early music. That's why I play more Baroque stuff - still lots of hemiolas but they fit into bars better. Hic.

I think it is partly also that recorders are *relatively* cheap... one can get some very nice ones for reasonable prices - whereas instruments with masses of keywork, or things like string instruments, tend to be insanely expensive... also, there's a limit to the range of tone colour etc one can get out of one recorder as I understand it, so it pays to have different recorders in different woods etc for different purposes, whereas other instruments can be more flexible to a certain extent and have greater dynamic/tonal range.

Feels expensive enough, but I know what you mean. Another reason to be glad I gave up the oboe.