Klarinet Archive - Posting 000670.txt from 2000/03

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] 'Quick' barrel.........
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:38:37 -0500

William Wright wrote,
> My point was that beginners (such as myself) have a tendency to play
scales from the bottom up while watching their tuner, and they quit watching
before they get all the way up there. Since the normal tendency is to be
flat below the staff and sharp above, the beginner may jump to the false
conclusion he (or she) is playing the entire range flat. Of course, using a
shorter barrel if your higher notes are already sharp will only compound the
error.>

You're right that changing the barrel won't fix this problem. But there's
something else going on here, too: It's not always the beginning clarinet
player's fault when the high notes are sharp and the low notes are flat. If
the switch happens at the register break, then the clarinet itself may cause
the problem.

The typical clarinets used by beginners tend to play wide twelfths: sharp
above the break and flat below. To some extent, this problem is inherent in
all keyed wind instruments, and made worse by the design of the clarinet,
because we're recycling the same set of holes to play a whole different set
of notes that are not an octave apart. It's the price we pay for a larger
basic range than that of other keyed wind instruments. One of several
reasons professional-quality clarinets cost more is that extra work goes into
the design and construction to reduce this problem. On some of the cheapest
student instruments, such as the Artley, the twelfths come in so wide and the
instrument is therefore so difficult (if not impossible) to play in tune
that, IMHO, it might discourage a beginner with a good ear, and might spoil
the ear of someone who gets used to this intonation.

Lelia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shameless Plug, off-topic....
In the new issue of _Scarlet Street_, No. 37, I co-authored one of the
cover stories, "Out of the Broom Closet," about the movies "I Married A
Witch," "Bell, Book and Candle" and the movie and TV series, "Bewitched." I
contributed most of the gross tonnage of verbiage, about 6,000 words of the
article. Richard Valley, the editor of the magazine, wrote everything about
"Bewitched" and added brief but important comments elsewhere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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