Klarinet Archive - Posting 000500.txt from 1998/07

From: <CmdrHerel@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Sliver or side (Was: remove Eb/Bb key L.H)
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 12:48:23 -0400

In a message dated 98-07-18 11:44:50 EDT, fredj@-----.edu writes:

<< I don't "condone" the idea but I don't recomend that my students use the
sliver (AKA Banana) key. I find that in fast passages it is ergonomically
inefficient compared to using the RH index finger key, which is operated
by a much more facile finger at a more comfortable angle. It may seem
counterintuitive at first to use that key but it soon proves to be faster
(not to mention that trills are enormously faster and easier, and that
going from uper register G to Bb is impossible the other way).
I have found the banana key to be useful on occasion so I guess I
wouldn't advocate removing it but I still don't teach its use to my
students. >>

I absolutely, strongly, and one hundred percent disagree, Fred. :)

I find the sliver key to be extremely ergonomically efficient, at a perfect
angle and in chromatic passages to be much more efficient than the side key.
In diatonic passages, the side key often works better.

I think the slivers are often thought of as harder, merely because they are
taught later or used less, and therefore are less familiar to the fingers.
Period. (So by not having your students use them, you are in a sense
perpetuating the very reason they're thought to be less efficient.)

If both keys are worked equally, neither is more comfortable, faster, or
better in terms of ease of use and position to the hand. It is merely a
matter of which works in a given passage: Sliver for chromatic and side for
diatonic. (Or whichever works best in an odd combination of both.)

Except of course if the player's fingers are big, and using the sliver covers
adjacent holes or pushes down on rings, causing the note to be flat.

Teri Herel

-------------------------------------------------------------------------