Klarinet Archive - Posting 000406.txt from 1998/03

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: Clarinet as a Tuning Instrument
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 14:44:29 -0500

I think you've forgotten about the bassoon, which has a seven-finger note
of low F - at least, theoretically it does.
Roger Shilcock

On Thu, 5 Mar 1998, Alec Hill wrote:

> Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 19:43:15 -0000
> From: Alec Hill <Alec.Hill@-----.com>
> To: Klarinet digest <klarinet@-----.us>
> Subject: Re: Clarinet as a Tuning Instrument
>
> Why should we designate different varieties of clarinet after the note
> produced when we finger a C rather than after the lowest note produced by
> the instrument? Both conventions would be logically possible. The problem
> with the latter is that it is both inconvenient and inconsistent.
>
> In what follows I'll distinguish between the two conventions by quoting the
> latter form, e.g. a Bb clarinet would be described as a 'D clarinet' when
> designated by its lowest note.
>
> Ask the player of any woodwind instrument to play a scale of C major and the
> fingering will be almost the same regardless of the instrument. With the
> clarinet we have the unique problem that its two principal registers,
> chalumeau and clarinet, are a twelfth apart so this rule can apply of course
> only in the clarinet register. The recorder family shares this variation:
> descant and tenor have the same fingering as the clarinet register,
> sopranino, treble and bass the same as the chalumeau. Commonality of
> fingering and of a notation system which relates to that fingering rather
> than to the absolute pitch produced makes it relatively easy for a clarinet
> player to switch not only between different members of the clarinet family
> but also, say, to a flute or saxophone, without having to switch to a
> completely new fingering system every time.
>
> I'm convinced that the ability to sightread well comes after repeated
> practice when the brain has learned to make an automatic and direct
> connection between pitch notation and the fingering. Thus after long
> experience of playing bassoon parts on the bass clarinet I now automatically
> transpose any bass clef parts up a 9th without thinking. The drawback is
> that if I need to play bass clarinet parts notated in the bass clef (e.g.
> Shostakovich) then I have a real problem turning off this mental activity
> and making what should be a much simpler transposition of an octave.
>
> The point I am trying to make is that a constant relationship between
> fingering and notation is both natural and useful. It seems both natural and
> convenient to describe your instrument by the transposition necessary to
> relate that fingering/notation to concert pitch. If you are playing an Eb
> clarinet and the conductor asks the band to tune to concert Bb, say, then
> you think "Eb clarinet - I'm pitched a minor 3rd high I will have to play a
> minor 3rd lower to compensate, hence I'll play G". However if you think "'G
> clarinet' - hmm, my bottom note is E, that means ... er, has any got an
> aspirin?".
>
> With brass instruments the lowest note is fundamental to the pitch system of
> the whole instrument. On a brass instrument (excluding oddities such as the
> serpent and cornett) every note is produced by the vibrations of a column of
> air the full length of the instrument. There are available a limited number
> of variations of that length, through the use of valves or slide, but it is
> always the length of the air column from mouthpiece to bell that determines
> the pitch. Alter the length of the instrument by inserting a tube into the
> bell and you will change the pitch of every single note.
>
> This is not so on woodwind instruments. Each note is basically produced by
> the vibrations of a column of air from the mouthpiece to the first open
> hole. (Of course it's a little more complicated than that since closing
> holes just below the open one also affect the pitch but these are secondary
> end effects.) If you insert a tube in the bell it will not significantly
> affect the tuning of most of the notes, just 2 or 3 near the bottom of the
> range.
>
> Last year I had occasion to play bass clarinet in the Romeo and Juliet
> Suites of Prokofiev. One movement ended with a low D (concert pitch C)
> which was a semitone below the range of my instrument. The problem was
> solved by the simple expedient of dropping a suitable length cardboard tube
> into the bell of the instrument, fingering bottom Eb, resulting in an
> acceptable D. Apart from the Eb, obviously, and a couple of notes above it,
> everything else on the instrument still played in tune.
>
> The choice of E for the bottom note of the soprano clarinets is not a
> fundamental property of those instruments but merely an arbitrary accident
> of history and manufacture. For example, the Bb soprano in 99% of cases has
> E as bottom note, sounding D in concert pitch, so perhaps could be described
> as a 'D clarinet'. However there do exist two variants, the full Boehm Bb
> whose bottom note is Eb and the basset clarinet used by Mozart whose bottom
> note is C. They both perform identically to their more common brother with
> the exception of the downward extension facilitated by extra keywork. Would
> it be useful to describe them respectively as 'C# and Bb clarinets'? How
> then would you distinguish the former from an A clarinet whose bottom note
> is E and which is thus also a 'C# clarinet'?
>
> Bass clarinets with bottom note of Eb or C are both common. They perform
> identically over most of their range, those extra 3 notes of the C
> instrument are a bonus, not a fundamental change. Would it really be useful
> to describe these as 'C# and Bb bass clarinets'? By dropping the tube into
> my bass clarinet bell to play low D, had I changed it from a 'C# bass
> clarinet' to a 'C bass clarinet'? From one point of view it is perfectly
> logical to say this -- it's just not very useful. On the other hand if you
> inserted a tube into the bell of a trumpet, which lowered its bottom note by
> one semitone, then this would also cause every single note on that
> instrument to be lowered by the same amount! A Bb trumpet would truly become
> a trumpet in A.
>
> Do brass players really describe their instruments by the lowest pitch?
> Isn't it the case, at least for horns and trumpets, that these are
> transposing instruments whose lowest notated pitch just happens to be C, so
> that the description using either convention turns out to be identical? If
> so it would seem to be just an attitude of mind as to how you would describe
> this. Certainly a trumpet playing friend of mine regards his Bb instrument
> as being so described because that is the pitch produced when he reads a C.
> But then he also plays clarinet, so maybe that experience has clouded his
> judgement! It would seem that it is the lower brass who are out of step. Is
> it simply the case that there is no universal
> agreement as to what pitch of tuba should be used in ensembles, therefore
> arrangers just provide parts at concert pitch to be played by whoever turns
> up? I have however seen parts labelled Bb Tuba, written in treble clef, with
> the same transposition as the bass clarinet, so maybe things are improving
> for them.
>
> To summarise, all clarinets are downwards extensible without changing their
> fundamental characteristic, namely the fingering - pitch relationship.
> Unlike the situation for brass instruments, the lowest note is not
> fundamental to the overall characteristics of the instrument. It would not
> therefore be very useful to designate the different members of the family by
> labelling them according to what is a rather arbitrary property.
>
>
> Alec Hill
>
>

   
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