G'day again Big Mick,

JohnInKansas and Spaw seem to have summed up the the odds on the instrument pretty well. My lunchtime discussion with Christiaan doesn't really add anything they have not already covered.

I like to get some less "Folkie" instruments into big groups, such as the Bush Music Club's Heritage Ball a few weeks back (27 April) ... if only to remind people that the real folk played whatever they had to hand! I see a lot of 19th century photographs of small family or local groups in the Australian outback with instruments we tnd to think of as "orchestral" today - and wooden clarinets are quite common.

In this year's Heritage Ball, we had a later date for the style, building it round ANZAC Day - Australia's main military holiday - so we set it in 1915. As well as the usual fiddles, concertinas, accordions (one played by Alison ... in between dashing back and forth to the St Albans Festival), whistles, flutes &c, this year I had a cornet and a small euphonium, which added some interesting colour to the band music of the 1910s era.

If the instrument is in a reasonably playable state, it could be interesting ... if it needs much work it probably isn't worth it.

regards,

Bob Bolton