Klarinet Archive - Posting 000568.txt from 1995/03

From: Fred Jacobowitz <fredj@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Albert System Fingering?
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 18:49:34 -0500

Doug,
Sounds like you have a very sharp Albert b-flat clarinet. If you
wanna get rid of it, advertize among the people who play Eastern
European and Balkan folk music (including Klezmer). They love those old
Alberts and don't mind dealing with the pitch. Have fun...

Fred Jacobowitz

On Thu, 23 Mar 1995, Doug Cook wrote:

> 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_
>