Klarinet Archive - Posting 000341.txt from 1998/11

From: reedman@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Don Carroll's Bass Clarinet Pedal
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 13:08:04 -0500

In reply to Neil's posting on Don Carrols' bass clarinet.

Don Carroll, bass clarinetist with the SF Symphony, plays a ca. 1914
Buffet bass clarinet originally designed to plat to Low Eb.

Dan was good friends with a man (now dead) in LA named Glen Johnston.
Glen was a studio musician back in the 40' and 50's and was also well known
as a repairman/acoustician and maker of mouthpieces. Glen had an individual
genius about him, I met him when I was a young man (boy!) studying with
Gary Gray. Beyond his incredible expertise as an acoustician and modifier
of instruments Glen had two very distinctive attributes: one leg and a
mouth that would make a sailor blush!

I had the opportunity to spend one afternoon learning about
mouthpiece making with Glen who was very generous with his time. Thanks,
Glen!

I believe that Don bought the bass clarinet from Glen in the early
50's as he was just starting his career in San Francisco. Initially, Glen
added an extension to Low D only that is operated with the thumb
(Presumably to play some of the Prokofiev orchestral repertoire). This part
of the extension is secured to the body with a metal bracket and is really
not removeable. I believe Glens's idea was also to produce the long B from
a tone hole farther up the bore and produce an acoustically correct tone.
The Low C extension was a further addition and is removeable and has a tone
hole for C#. This tone hole (C#) is operated by an additional thumb
mechanism. I don't know if Glen ran out of time or if the C mechanism was
proving to be too complicated, but he came up with the ingenious idea of
simply adding a long lever to the tone hole pad on the bell that can be
operated by a tap with the foot. *Foot pedal*.

Clark w Fobes

Clark W Fobes
Web Page http://www.sneezy.org/clark_fobes

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