Grafton Plastic

[JoeV]

I LOVE THE SOUNDS OF THESE AND HAVE TO HAVE ONE!!!!!!!!!!!
does anyone no where i can get one...ino there vintage...but im willing to pay a lot for one!!!!!!!!!!!

[amg]

Forum member KMR has THREE of these for sale -- go to the equipment wanted/for sale forum (in the marketplace section) and scroll down. He posted the notice on May 27.

[gary]

I played a killer Grafton at the Saxofoonwinkel in Deventer, Netherlands. Go to www.saxshop.nl. Great people and great service.

[Gordon (NZ)]

They are murder to service.

There are regulating screws to adjust linkages.
You can't turn them unless the keys are removed! So it is very time consuming guess work. Crazy!

When you take keys off, tiny coil springs (instead of needle springs) launch themselves around the room.

Key cups often need correction to alignment with the tone holes. Put sufficient force on to do this, and the plastic mounting of the posts can collapse.

The plastic of the body becomes very brittle with age, and the instruments all have plenty of that.

I've forgotten all the other problems.

I would expect adjustment of one of these to cost several times that for a conventional sax. It is high risk for a technician to take one on.

But yes, I too like the sound of one that is working properly.

Interesting, considering the arguments presented in this forum promoting the importance of silver plating or gold plating, or solid silver neck, etc. for a good sound.

[amg]

Now there's one on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=16232&item=3727778 515&rd=1

I also think they sound great. But I wouldn't be happy knowing I had an instrument that was unrepairable (if it cracked, or lost a post, for example). I think Ornette Coleman is supposed to have gone through several of them before they became effectively unobtainable. I guess Sommaruga's original idea was that they would be so cheap to produce that you could regard them as disposable ... when one gets crocked, you just get another. But it didn't work out.

Though servicing them sounds like a riot. If you ever get another one in the workshop, Gordon, you should sell tickets.

I once knew a man called Graham Lyons, who invented a plastic C clarinet (meant to be a cheap starter instrument for children). It had "snap-on" plastic keys, I recall. He would start demonstrations by THROWING ONE ON THE FLOOR (where it bounced, and keys flew off). Within thirty seconds or so he'd have snapped the keys back into place and be playing it.

Don't try this with your Grafton.

[Gordon (NZ)]

Lyons Clarinet:
http://www.firstclarinet.com/
I've never seen one, but I wonder why they did not catch on.

[pknight]

Interesting web site.

To answer Gordon's question about why they haven't caught on, I would say that the primary reason, Lyon's claims notwithstanding, is that the thing is in C. The clarinet literature is in Bb. Keep in mind that these are primarily targeted at young students: What is a student in a school band with a Lyon C supposed to do, play flute parts? Or is the band director supposed to transpose the clarinet parts for students with this clarinet? A private teacher may be willing to do this, but I doubt that many band directors would have the time or inclination.

Lyon's clarinet probably hasn't caught on for the same reason nobody makes C Melody saxes any more. It might be fun to play around with the thing at home, especially if you have a lot of piano music, but if you are going to play in an ensemble it could be a real headache, either for the player or the director.

[amg]

Why didn't the Lyons clarinet catch on?

I know the r & d took much longer and was more expensive than Graham anticipated. I think he had to sell out to another company in the end.

Pknight's reason is correct -- Lyons clarinet players would have to buy a Bflat instrument eventually to join the existing musical community.... So most parents would have thought, Well, let's go straight to the "real thing", let the kid have a sore thumb for a year or so....

But another basic reason was that they weren't quite cheap enough. To carve out a sizeable new market in the face of the expected scepticism, they would have had to undercut the price of a starter Bflat clarinet by A LOT. In fact they were not that much cheaper than the standard beginner's Yamaha (maybe two-thirds of the price? -- I don't remember).

But a very cool concept and (I'm told) a totally feasible pro instrument.