Klarinet Archive - Posting 000706.txt from 1995/12

From: Teri Herel <Herelt@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Clarinet Fingering Chart
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 21:39:23 -0500

In a message dated 95-12-28 03:15:56 EST, you write:

>Can most clarinet players sight read
>music written in concert pitch as easily as music written 'clarinet' pitch?

God, I WISH!

>I understand there is a history as to why b-flat clarinets are what they
>are, but it seems strange that modern students aren't just taught the
>concert pitch names for each fingerings. It would make things much
>simpler.

It seems to me that this would be confusing. It's that white-key, black-key
thing: It would be like learning piano one whole step displaced, so that CM
uses two black keys, B-flat M uses all white keys, etc. An 'E' would be a
black key while a D# would be a white key. On the clarinet the idea of
playing without sharps and flats loosly connected to using "extra" keys
(slivers, sides, and forked) seems oh so strange to me. However, learning
ANY system seems strange to a beginner, so perhaps this is not such a bad
idea after all.

Now, on the other hand, I have no desire to fight years and years and YEARS
of published literature all for B-flat, and A clarinet. To teach my students
to play concert pitch would mean that they couldn't play band parts for
clarinet, orchestra parts for clarinet, woodwind quintets, string quintets,
quartets, clarinet & piano, etc. etc. without transposing. As music
published for C clarinet is by far the minority, I believe the current
convention is the more desirable. (Look at how long it has taken for C
clarinet orchestra parts to never be transposed by the editors. Can you see
them now saying, "O.k. guys, lets take all the literature we have and change
all the clarinet parts to C clarinet parts...")

I look foward to more thoughts on this. Teri Herel