Klarinet Archive - Posting 000027.txt from 1997/03

From: Nathaniel F Johnson <clarinat@-----.com>
Subj: Re: barrels/tuning
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 00:36:15 -0500

On Sat, 1 Mar 1997 16:05:50 -0800 Kathi A <kathi@-----.COM>
writes:
>I hear about these barrels that makes it easier to tune. They have
>something
>on them that enables you to lengthen them rather than pulling out the
>piece
>a little when you are sharp. Does anyone have one or know about them?
>Thanks
>so much.
>--<-{= Kathi =}->--
>

There may be others, but the one with which I am familiar is the
CLICK barrel. It is made of plastic and has a thumb wheel on the back
which allows one to cahnge the length from 61-68 mm (I think--the barrel
is in a box in my office). The problem that I had with it was that it
would often collapse while I was playing, causing it to "lose" a mm at a
time. Also, the thumb wheel has two halves. On the barrel that I got,
one half of the wheel spun freely, not affecting the length at all. It
could be that the collapsing problem was caused by a defective thumbwheel
that was peculiar to particular barrel that I got. The barrel was sent
to me, as the clarinet section leader of a military band, for free about
a year ago to try out. When the owner/salesman/designer (or whoever)
called back to find out what I thought, I was not around to take the call
and I never called him back. :-( So I don't know whether the problem
was with my particular barrel, or was more generalized and later fixed,
or what.
Despite being plastic, it had a decent sound. It probably, by
the luck of the draw, matched the bore size of my horn and/or mouthpiece.
(Buffet S1 and Pyne ~M, if anybody cares).
Some people have philisophical problems with such a barrel,
though, thinking that clarinettists, especially young students, will use
the mechanism to tune individual notes, rather than using their ears and
their embouchures. Clearly this should not be done. But I think that it
would be nice to have a barrel to which one can add a milimeter at a time
(without the use of tuning rings) as one's instrument warms up and goes
sharp.

Just some thoughts,

Nathaniel Johnson
Conductor / Clarinettist
All-Around Good Guy
University of Northern Colorado