Klarinet Archive - Posting 000050.txt from 1995/10

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: B clarinet
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 12:32:41 -0400

On Wed, 4 Oct 1995 Robert.Spring@-----.BITNET wrote:

> One of my fellow professors at ASU brought me an old albert system clarinet
> last week that her neighbor bought at a garage sale in Phoenix. It is a
> Carl Fischer - which according to our instrument tech person here at the
> University, Gerry Evoniuk, really means nothing as Carl Fischer
> distributed, not manufactured, clarinets.
>
> Anyway, I played the clarinet -sort of- it is in pretty bad shape, but it
> was clearly in the key of B...not B flat! In that it was leaking so badly,
> I tried a throat tone B flat, figuring that everything was open and the
> leaks would have no real impact. The B flat came out a concert A!
>
Leaky pads, a mouthpiece and reed which might or might not be suitable
for the instrument, and the fact that it probably hasn't been played in
years could all have some influence, but it seems to me that the most
likely possibility is that you have a C clarinet at low pitch. Someone
on the list might be able to tell you what the exact tuning of low pitch
instruments was, but my experience has been that it isn't an entire
semi-tone lower than A@-----.
So perhaps you have a C clarinet at low pitch, which was playing sharp
because you used a throat tone to test it.

Just some speculation.

Ed Lacy
*********************************************************************
Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)497-2252
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