Klarinet Archive - Posting 000655.txt from 1998/07

From: George Kidder <gkidder@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] remove Eb/Bb key L.H.
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 08:15:58 -0400

Lee Hickling wrote:
<SNIP>
However, I think it is perhaps the most nearly useless alternate fingering
on a clarinet. I could live without it,
<SNIP>

So how do you do a Bb-B trill? Move two fingers on different hands?

And Dee Hayes wrote:
<SNIP>
What distresses me is that I have been in some community bands where I have
known students with several years of training yet know only ONE fingering
for the Bb/Eb and then wonder why they can't play the passage. Not only do
they not know the fingerings, they don't even know they exist and wonder
what you are talking about when you tell them there are alternates and to
check their fingering chart. Worse yet, I was in one band with an
instructor of clarinet from a nearby college and he didn't know the trill
fingering for the clarion Ab/Bb trill and could not play this trill
smoothly. He had to ask me how to play it! I admit I did not know how to
play it until I looked it up in the trill chart but at least I was bright
enough to go look.
<SNIP>

My experience exactly. While design of clarinets is not exactly logical,
one would believe that if a key had NO function, it would have been
eliminated - one less pad to leak, etc. But it has a number of important
functions that should be taught. Then if a mature student decides to
neglect some keys, that is their business.

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