Klarinet Archive - Posting 000704.txt from 1998/02

From: Grant Green <gdgreen@-----.com>
Subj: Re: Ophicleide?
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 03:42:27 -0500

At 07:48 PM 2/17/98 -0500, you wrote:
>The following message had two pictures of what I assume to be an
>ophicleide - a strange instrument if I ever saw one (I had to look
>this up - the etymology is "keyed snake"). If anyone would like a
>copy of the pictures I'd be more than happy to send them to
>you. I won't be posting them on sneezy because I believe (if my
>conversion from French to English via high school Latin can be
>trusted) that this is an ad to sell it for 20000F.

Actually, it is a "keyed serpent." The old serpent is essentially the bass
version of the cornet, a "brass" instrument with fingerholes. The serpent
has a cup-shaped mouthpiece, like a brass instrument, and six fingerholes.
The fingerholes are positioned more "where you can reach them" than "where
they do the most good, acoustically", which makes the instrument very hard
to play in tune.

The ophicleide was an improvement over the serpent, substituting large tone
holes in acoustically logical positions for the small serpent fingerholes.
The ophicleide tone holes are covered by pads much like modern saxophone
pads. Unfortunately, the 9-11 keys are set up so that the nearest finger
(or thumb) operates a key, rather than arranging the keys in woodwind
fashion (i.e., holding down all the keys, and lifting fingers one by one
4-3-2-1 does not produce a scale). I suspect it was difficult to learn and
play well, although music written for the ophicleide looks like it would be
demanding on the modern euphonium player as well.

The ophicleide bore is nearly a perfect cone, uninterrupted by sections of
cylindrical bore or valves. It was made in Bb and C (for the bass
ophicleide), and Eb and F (for the alto ophicleide, aka quinticlave).
Adolphe Sax is supposed to have made the best ophicleides, and one story is
that the Bb ophicleide, with a bass clarinet mouthpiece, was his
inspiration for the saxophone (beginning with the Bb bass sax).

Grant

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant D. Green gdgreen@-----.com
www.contrabass.com Just filling in on sarrusophone
Contrabass email list: contrabass-list@-----.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++