Klarinet Archive - Posting 000121.txt from 1997/01

From: "J. Lawrie Bloom" <l-bloom@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Bass Clarinet Woes!
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 10:49:15 -0500

I really love the bass
>clarinet the most though, and though I'm making progress getting adapted
>to it, I'm having a devil of a time. Basically, I'm plagued by squeaks.
>I've tried a variety of reeds, from vandoren blue boxes, to v12's, to
>different flavors of rico, all of which I've smoothed and sanded so as not
>to be warped just like my soprano reeds; I've worked with both an ordinary
>selmer metal ligature and a rovner, on my mouthpiece, which is selmer
>standard. I just can't seem to get past a strange tendency to get these
>ODD sounds out of the instrument, when hitting the high end of the clarion
>register, and the lower part of altissimo, and sometimes, especially at the
>beginning of playing, in the chalameau register. The clarinet's been checked
>up as being in good working order, and when played by a professional friend,
>it's been said to respoind well, even though it's an older plastic one-piece
>horn. Anything I can check, or change about my practice, that might help me
>get my sound unstuffy, and clean in breaking? Any help would be _deeply_
>appreciated.
>
> --Bill

There are a number of questions left open. Which "standard" Selmer
mouthpiece? There are quite a few, and they do respond quite differently.
All the Selmer mouthpieces I have have been re-faced by Evertt Matson, so
they respond better
and solve some of the squeaking.

You don't say where you are, or whether you are doubling, when you have
warpage problems. In good humid weather, not doubling, it doesn't much
matter to the reed what ligature you use. In dry places, or when going
back and forth to another instrument, you need something that exerts a fair
amount of pressure on the rails, which is where bass reeds warp. And they
do warp more easily than clarinet reeds because they are less dense. I use
the Bay for this reason.

Most newcomers to the bass squeak because of hitting keys they didn't mean
to. Practice a lot of scales, something like the Klose, you don't need
extended range, just to get your fingers really used to the spacing.
Especially if you are going from Eb to bass, as I am this week in the
orchestra, you have to be secure on the difference in spacing, so your
fingers don't ask extraneous keys to join in the fun.

Good luck, it's a great instrument.

--
J. Lawrie Bloom
clarinet and bass clarinet Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Northwestern University l-bloom@-----.edu