Klarinet Archive - Posting 000483.txt from 1998/10

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] re: timberal differences - tested
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 18:57:03 -0400

On Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:31:42 -0400, reedman@-----.com said:

> Ok I tested myself. Tony Pay knows the answer. I listened to his
> Mozart Recording (Hogwood)(1st mvt 1st few measures), and can "hear"
> that his E (4th space) is not fingered with the standard French L.H. 3
> fingers + R.H. 2 fingers. I also hear something different on the high
> C (possibly middle finger used??). I know that he is playing on a an
> authentic style clarinet, but I have no knowledge of what fingerings
> are used to produce those notes, I am going only by what my ear tells
> me. So Tony, am I correct?

What makes you think I read this list at the moment:-)

Actually, because the basset clarinet (7 keys plus 4 keys for the basset
extension) was the first iteration of our construction (we did a new
bottom joint later, and then some modifications), there are some
unusual-sounding notes. Nevertheless.......I'm afraid you're wrong
about the fingering of the E. It is exactly the same on all clarinets,
French, German, basset, bass, old, new, borrowed, blue, that I've
encountered.

But, it is a basset clarinet, and the response of notes in that register
is altered by the extension.

The top C, on the other hand, is as you say, thumb + sp + middle finger.

> The 1st note of the 3rd mvt. is quite obvious of the different E
> fingering. But I've been wrong before, so please be gentle if I'm
> wrong this time......

There, there...

> (heck, I even wrote knowlege before my spell checker caught me). I'll
> state again that a player playing a German system Clarinet will
> basically sound like the same player playing a French Clarinet EXCEPT
> for the individual fingering Timbres of the tones. I don't have
> "perfect" pitch, but do have "Clarinet pitch" that I can tell with
> 100% accuracy what note is being played. You play (without me looking)
> a low F# on an A Clarinet, play a low F# on a Bb Clarinet, and I'll
> know that they are both F#'s - by timbre.

What I find is, I sometimes *know* this, and I'm proved right, and I
sometimes *know* this, and I'm proved wrong. (This is ammunition for
Dan.)

*But* -- a couple of years ago I played the Wesendonck Lieder on a
German clarinet. There's a bit straight out of Tristan: two poignant
notes, essentially, in the clarinet phrase. Fantastic scoring,
wonderful orchestra playing on gut strings. Several people came up
afterwards and said how wonderful I was. But *I* didn't do anything,
apart from appreciate how wonderful the instrument was in that context
as the piece went by.

On a French instrument, I'd have been working really hard to get the
effect, and I really think that would have been noticed.

....OK Dan, it's subjective. We didn't do the test....<cringe>

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
tel/fax 01865 553339

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