Klarinet Archive - Posting 000565.txt from 1995/03

From: Doug Cook <cook@-----.COM>
Subj: Albert System Fingering?
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 16:36:29 -0500

Hi, folks,
In addition to a cheapie student-model Boehm System clarinet, I
have a much older clarinet from an unknown maker (Jean Marbeau), which
I believe to be an Albert System clarinet (just because I know it's not
Boehm, and I don't know any other fingerings). (This is the old
clarinet about which I posted a week or so ago). I've played around
with it a bit (killer tone!), and I've learned a bit about the
fingerings. I'd like to find out more.
Here's what I've found out so far. A: it has fewer keys than
the Boehm clarinet, e.g. two keys on the right pinky. B: The note
played with all holes open is about a concert F#, instead of concert F,
as on a Bb clarinet. Is it possible for it to have gone a half-step out
of tune, or was it made this way?
C: Closing the thumb hole goes down a half-step, instead of a
whole step. As I cover all the holes in order, it plays a descending
major scale (so the right-hand is very different). So while the
all-holes-open note is the dominant on my Boehm clarinet, the
all-holes-open note seems to be the tonic of this clarinet.
What have I got here? Any clues?

-Doug

Doug Cook, cook@-----.

"Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to
be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better
than to be blindly and impotently happy." -Edwin A. Abbott, _Flatland_