Klarinet Archive - Posting 000044.txt from 1995/03

From: Timothy Tikker <tjt@-----.ORG>
Subj: Re: Eb Clarinet (a bit rambling...)
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 12:08:47 -0500

The first E-flat I played was an old metal one - I don't recall the make
- which belonged to the San Francisco school system. I had just
volunteered to play E-flat in the Advanced Band at the 1974 Summer Music
Workshop held at Lowell High School.

I was shocked at how out-of-tune with itself the thing was. And it
aggravated my director as well (who was also the director from my own
school, Washington High), a clarinettist himself.

For the first two weeks of the workshop, every day during the main
rehearsal, at some point the director would mutter at me "Tikker, you're
out of tune!" Of course, I was going nuts, because the instrument was
built out of tune - what a helpless feeling!

Gradually I found myself compensating, adjusting embrochure and
air-pressure to pull the various notes more-or-less to where they should
be. And after about two weeks, there came a point where the director
would turn to me in surprise and say, sort of quietly and wonderingly,
"you're in tune!"

The following two years I played E-flat again, these times with another
school-owned horn, a wooden Leblanc. But it was nearly as discordant as
its predecessor! And I went through the same ritual: two weeks of the
director saying "Tikker, you're out-of-tune!", followed by a wondering
"you're in tune!"

It was a valuable lesson. Nobody had ever taught me about note-by-note
adjustment of intonation - so often the attitude is that the ideal
combination of pulling-out of various joints will bring the whole horn
perfectly in tune, or at least that's how one so often gets treated in a
school band! Playing those E-flats was a crash course in playing in tune
by ear, which is now an indispensible tool.

I enjoyed playing E-flat - it meant not having to compete for chair
placement for first B-flat! - and I always enjoyed the sound of the
instrument, probably my favorite of all the clarinets. One of the only
composers who really appreciated it was Percy Grainger, who knew what a
wonderful low register it has: see the first two pieces in _Lincolnshire
Posy_.

A couple of years ago somebody sold me my E-flat, a metal (!)
Cundy-Bettoney which I love dearly. It seems to have been made for
professional military band use. Its tone is rich and sonorous, and it's
much more in tune than any other E-flat I've played. It came with a
Vandoren 2RV mouthpiece, but the altissimo seems unnaturally difficult so
I sometimes wonder about a new one.