Klarinet Archive - Posting 000993.txt from 1998/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Basset Questions
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 00:16:58 -0400

> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.03
> Subj: Re: [kl] Basset Questions

> On 22 Oct 1998 11:57:06, Shouryu Nohe <jnohe@-----.edu> wrote:
> >On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Tim Roberts wrote:
> >> Basset clarinets are pitched in A. What about basset horns? The WW&BW
> >> catalog says the bore on a basset horn is exactly equal to the bore on
> >> an Eb alto. Is a basset horn, then, pitched in Eb?
> >
> >Unless it is referring to a particular brand, the statement about the
> >bores isn't true, I think. The bore of a basset horn is more comparable
> >to the bore of a Bb clarinet, where as the Alto's bore is generally a
> >drawn mean between the Bb and the Bass.
>
> I fear that I was somewhat imprecise in my original statement, implying that
> WW&BW was distributing false information. Please allow me to restate it here
> more precisely.
>
> WW&BW did not make any statements like "the bore on a basset horn is exactly
> equal to the bore on an Eb alto." However, the one Eb alto clarinet for
> which they list a bore size is .709", and the one basset horn for which they
> list a bore size (Buffet, I believe) is .708" (I may have those reversed).
>
> My sentence was a restatement of this observation, but in restating I added
> an unintended connotation. I apologize for the confusion.
>
> This does lend credence to Dan Leeson's post, in which he suggests that
> modern production basset horns are actually alto clarinets in F extended to
> low C.
>
> Dan, you said that the narrow tube of a "traditional" basset horn makes the
> air column unstable. What does that mean, exactly? Is it more difficult to
> stay in tune over the range of the instrument? Does this refer to unintended
> overtones? Or is it something more subtle?

Tim, I didn't say that the narrow bore made the air column unstable. What
I said was that the narrow bore made the instrument unstable. By that,
what I was trying to say, was that narrow bored basset horns are
acoustically defective. They produce a terrible throat b-flat, the
intonation is problematic, they squeak when you look at them sideways,
getting the right mouthpiece is very difficult, etc., etc.

Now these are problems that I am told by those who have alto clarinets
in F (i.e., big bored instruments) that do not exist for them. I'm
very glad of that. But I was frantic for 30 years of basset horn
playing because it was tough to make them work at the highest
professional level.

I owned two Selmer narrow bored instruments and I played on a lot
more, and never found one that had no problems. Pitch was always
an iffy thing.

I believe that these difficulties eventually led to the basset horn
become almost completely obsolete for almost a century. In 1900
you couldn't find a good working basset horn for love or money. Brahms
once commented that he heard a pair of basset horns in the late 1800s
and it was the only time in his life that he had even seen them, much
less heard them.

These acoustical deficiencies were not satisfactorily addressed until
LeBlanc made the large bored alto clarinet in F (though some of
their instruments were problems, too). But the basset horn was
plagued because of its extra length but unchanged bore from a
standard soprano clarinet.

The bottom line is that when you make a clarinet longer and longer,
you have to make the bore wider and wider or else you are in for
trouble. Can you image a bass clarinet with a bore the size of
a B-flat soprano clarinet?

There is something in the engineering of clarinets that says,
"a longer instrument means a wider bore."!!

>
> --
> - Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
> Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
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