Klarinet Archive - Posting 000584.txt from 1995/09

From: Mark Dunlop <dunlop@-----.NZ>
Subj: How *should* a Basset Horn sound ?
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 01:03:33 -0400

Before imposing my question on you all, I should introduce myself.
I am a Masters student in computer science, nearing completion of a
rather frightening year of papers, at the University of Canterbury -
our academic year runs with the calendar year. Clarinet will always
be my passionate interest, but it still took me 15 years to decide
what I wanted to be when I grew up :-)

I've had a reasonable amount of orchestral experience, progressing
through our local youth orchestra to the Christchurch Symphony
Orchestra - a semi-professional group who's standards are improving
all the time. My greatest moment would have been getting into the
second round of our National Concerto Competition - and annoying the
*hell* out of most of the University performance students.

Anyway, I've just been given a basset horn for performance of the
Mozart Requiem in a couple of weeks. I'm gradually ironing out its
(and my) wrinkles, but I don't really know how it should sound.
For the range of the Requiem, I seem to be making a noise
frighteningly like a soprano saxophone - am I close to the mark ?

Finally, what sort of reeds relate to such a beast. If there are
reeds particular to the horn, I am unlikely to be able to find
any in New Zealand. What is the best alternative ?

Oh well, I guess its back to working out how to write a 3500 word
essay on machine learning by 5pm tomorrow.

Cheers,

Mark Dunlop
Email: dunlop@-----.nz