SELMER - PARIS
SERIES 10G
Bb CLARINET

Serial number Z3346 (1976)

SOLD - APR. '08

I sold one of these a year or so ago to a fellow in the UK who really liked it. Here is the one I sold.

Manufactured in 1976

This clarinet comes with the original mouthpiece, a Selmer HS*, and case, both in excellent condition.

The keys and body rings are silver-plated. There is some wear-through on the silver...most notably at the tops of the key posts and the large ring at the bottom of the bell (see pictures). I did not see any silver loss on the keys and, perhaps most importantly, on the keys' fingertouches.

The grenadilla wood is in excellent shape...no cracks or chips.

A couple of the pads on the lower joint were bad, so I took the keys off, removed the old pads and corks, polished the keys, recorked and repadded them. I cleaned the body and treated it with bore oil. I re-assembled the clarinet and adjusted and regulated it.

The upper joint and all the tenon corks were fine. The fell under the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it ruling". This saves me time and consequently saves you money.

When I re-assembled the keys on the bottom joint, I reversed the spring on the F-C lever. This helps balance the spring tensions and also, the F-C lever now 'follows' the E-B lever and the F#-C# lever.

Here's some background information on the Selmer 10G compiled from a variety of sources:

As Principal clarinetist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the late Anthony Gigliotti was one of the country's most famous and influential clarinetists. His collaboration with Selmer Paris led to the development of the Selmer Series 10G. In creating the 10G, Selmer aimed to improve upon the design of Buffet's R13. Gigliotti used to play R13s that he had modified to his specifications by Hans Moennig; Gigliotti believed that these design changes produced a clarinet with better intonation and more evenness throughout the registers. The design of the 10G was based on the modifications that Hans Moennig made to Gigliotti's R13s. The 10G retains the wonderful qualities of the R13 but also met Gigliottis's goals, allowing players to be "more versatile -flexible in dynamics, able to meet the demands for a broad range of tone, precise in tuning, and able to play stronger fortissimos without losing musical quality".

First was the Selmer "Balanced Tone" (1940's) and "Centered Tone" (1950's) clarinets. These preceeded the Selmer Series 9 and are large bore clarinets.

The Series 9 (1960's) replaced the "Centered Tone" model. Up through the Selmer 9, the Selmer philosophy was to use a large diameter tone hole with no undercutting (straight sided tone holes; and an almost purely cylindrical bore. The larger tone holes do produce a more robust tone, but the twelfths are "short" and tend to be very sharp in the fundamental when playing pianissimo.

The Selmer 9* was next and was a move toward reducing tone hole diameters in some areas and introducing undercutting. Undercut tone holes, offer a more flexible tone (perhaps a bit more free blowing).
Here's a quote: "Unlike the Series 9, the Series 9 star has undercut tone holes, which offer a more flexible tone. "

The Selmer Series 10 was a radical move toward a polycylindrical design.

The great innovation by Robert Carre (Buffet) in the 1950's was the use of a polycylindrical bore design and smaller, but undercut tone holes. The reduction of the bore size in the lower 2/3 of the upper joint greatly improves the twelfths in that area.

The Selmer 10G was the result of work with Anthony Gigliotti and a move even closer to the Buffet design.

The 10G is the Hans Moennig modification of the R-13, and plays similarly to the R-13 although the tone tends to be brighter than the R-13. Hans Moennig (repairman from Philadelphia in the 1950's and 1960's) redesigned the R-13 on his own by eliminating the choke in the bell and increasing the choke at the bottom of the barrel. The measurement at the bottom of the Moennig barrel is about 0.010" smaller than the top as compared to the standard 0.004". The Selmer 10-G basically copied the Hans Moennig design into a Selmer clarinet. The only significant difference is the shape of the barrel and some of the undercutting of the tone holes. The straighter .574" bore offers a rich, robust sound capable of projection.

Benny Goodman played a Selmer 10G with a Woodwind G9 mouthpiece and Vandoren 1-1/2 reeds.
Note: This may be apocryphal. That's right, I said 'apocryphal'.