Klarinet Archive - Posting 000094.txt from 1995/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re the value of the B clarinet discussion
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 15:08:01 -0400

I try to keep up with the history of clarinet playing and the trends
in instrument types and choices, but I must admit that until I became
involved with this whole question of high-pitch/low-pitch instruments
just a few years ago, I had zero knowledge that this environment
had existed in the world of clarinetdom, much less within such a short
period of time in the past. The fact that clarinet players had to
make a choice of which instrument to bring to a rehearsal based on
the pitch at which the ensemble would perform was a complete revelation
to me. Like Bob Spring, someone simply showed up at my house with a
clarinet that I really thought was a clarinet in B-natural!! And I
could not figure out how it was possible for such an instrument to
be manufactured ca. 1920.

But I learned that the instrument was not a clarinet in B-natural, simply
a clarinet in B-flat built at high pitch so as to make the instrument
usable in a particular environment.

To me that was a defining moment in my learning process. It described
a work condition that would never have occurred to me. Can you imagine
today getting a call to play something and then asking what pitch the
caller wanted you to execute at???

Now, complicating the issue is the fact that the person who showed up
at my house and was the catalyst by which I learned so much, told me
that the instrument was his girlfriend's and that she played it in
her high school band! So my reaction was, "Didn't she or anyone else
hear that she was a half tone out of tune?" to which the young man
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====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================