Klarinet Archive - Posting 000672.txt from 1998/07

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: Re: [kl] The slur in Brahms first Sonate
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 23:41:07 -0400

I don't have a score at home, so I can't play the passage in question to
see what fingerings would work best for me, But for slurring C3 to Eb3, one
could try using the top two in the rank of four RH index finger keys,
depressed simultaneously with the first knuckle of the right index finger.
I don't know whether that would help in this passage because it depends on
what comes after the Eb.

All the recent discussion of which fingering of Bb is "normal", and so on,
has not usually dealt with that sort of consideration. Any fingering may be
excellent, or terrible, depending on what is happening before and after the
note in question, which clarinet you are playing, and (especially when the
note is a leading tone) sometimes also on what key one is in.

The lower two LH keys, by the way, pressed together with the register key
open and the thumb hole stopped, give an excellent Db3, and in the lower
register, with the thumb hole stopped, produce an F# that eliminates the
dreaded finger-flip too many of us rely on, which works very well for
playing G-F#-F in slow legato passages..

Those four keys are one of the great unexploited areas in advanced
techique, and not all the fingerings for which they are occasionally useful
are on standard fingering charts. Clarinets, though, vary in the quality
and intonation of the notes that result, and what works on one may be
useless on another.

>just another $.02 worth..............try using the third finger of the rt.
>hand and the pinky D# for the high Eb....the C preceding the Eb should
>obviously be played on the left hand

If I understand the writer correctly, this would require stopping the AD
holes and the GC holes as well. The result is the most-used fingering for
Eb3. (Or Eb4 if you have an augmented Boehm clarinet with low Eb.)

I wish there were a standard nomenclature for the keys of a Boehm clarinet.
Every fingering chart seems to be different from all the others.

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>

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