Klarinet Archive - Posting 000159.txt from 1995/05

From: David Gilman <dagilman@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Is no one to touch my posting?
Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 15:39:05 -0400

> A couple of days ago, I posted a query about how it is that Clarinets
>seem to have the "upper hand" (vs. Oboes, Flutes, and Bassoons) in terms of
>technical flexibility and overall flexibility.

> Clarinets, on the other hand, have no "impossible" keying (some
>pattersn/trills/tremolos are harder than others, but with a little practice
>there isn't really anything we can't play), and we have more dynamic
>flexibility than any other instrument. How'd we get so lucky?
>
> -- Scott McChesney

Scott,
Yes, we do have it nice in that just about all trills and tremolos
are possible on the clarinet. But, many are rather impractical. I am
working on a Rose Caprice this week which has some b'b [inverted?] mordents
at a fast tempo, and getting the right hand back into position quickly after
tapping the first and second side keys is not trivial. As someone said
before, tremolos across the break are also a bear. It seems to me that most
composers regard the flute as more agile than the clarinet, since they write
so much florid, technical stuff for it. I play both, but I haven't decided
which is more agile of the two overall. In extreme keys the flute and
saxophone have an advantage in that they don't have to do all of our little
finger slides and switches. We have an easier time with wide leaps between
registers. [Try doing the first two lines of the Brahms First Sonata on a
saxophone up tempo!]
I suspect one reason we do have so much stability is that the first
few partials in our harmonic spectrum are so far apart. Our second (octave)
partial is essentially unusable; thus, we overblow to the third (a twelfth
above the fundamental). In order to cover this full twelfth, we have extra
keys (low e, throat g'#, throat a') that other instruments don't. I feel
this lack of a second partial makes our low range more stable, since more
effort is required to overblow it. This is why our lowest tones can be
played pp and ff very easily, while those of the oboe and flute cannot.
This is also why the oboe, flute, and bassoon can overblow to their second
registers easily with or without a register hole and we cannot without great
effort. The absence of a usable fourth partial (two octaves above the
fundamental) does the same thing for our clarion register. It is secure
because it will not overblow so easily to the altissimo (from the third to
the fifth partial). Hence, we can get by with one register hole while the
saxophone uses two and the oboe three.
We have extra keys to cover these wider registers. Plus, Ivan
Mueller and Hyacinthe Klose' (the true inventor of the "Boehm system") gave
us many extra options: side keys, trill keys, L/R cross fingerings,....
This could explain why we have so many trills and tremolos possible.
This is all well and good, but what impresses me the most about the
clarinet is not the range or the response of each register, but the variety
of tone colors we can produce. We can go from a lush, dark tone to a thin,
nasal one to a scream on the same exact instrument. Strings and double
reeds cannot do this. Saxophones can, but not the exact same way.
Well, enough of my ramblings.

David Gilman

   
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