Klarinet Archive - Posting 000790.txt from 2000/05

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Eb on bell
Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 06:06:47 -0400

On Wed, 17 May 2000 01:38:46 -0400, 100012.1302@-----.com said:

> > From: George Kidder <gkidder@-----.org>
>
> > The utility of resonance fingerings, which are always changes in the
> > pattern of open and closed holes BELOW the hole that is the primary
> > vent for a note, says to me that the lower part of the clarinet does
> > in fact influence the sound. Some of these fingerings (e.g.,
> > closing the lowest Eb key as part of a resonance fingering for
> > "open" G) are at great distances from the primary vent. So a
> > question for Dan - in your experience, do the upper ("left hand")
> > notes sound or feel any different when played on a standard clarinet
> > then they do with a basset lower joint?
>
> This is true, and so was Dan's original comment. His is correct for a
> 'plain' fingering in which there is a length of pipe closed by the
> fingers then all open holes. It isn't correct for forked fingerings,
> where there is a pipe, a partially open pipe, a section of closed
> pipe, then open pipe again. The resonance fingerings (not a very good
> term, really) or fingerings like L123R2 for F# clarinet register are
> ALL forked, and the acoustic analysis is then much more complicated.

Well, of course all notes other than the chalumeau notes are in a sense
'forked' under this definition, even the clarinet ones, involving as
they do the 'partially open pipe' under the register key. This is even
clearer in the third register, where we mostly open the first finger of
the LH. Incidentally, notice that a 'forked' fingering can also be
viewed as a normal fingering plus an uneven tonehole lattice below the
first open hole -- all the extra fingers do is to make the distance
between two open holes of the lattice longer -- so it's the evenness of
the tonehole lattice that is crucial. And actually, the tonehole
lattice on a clarinet isn't quite even, as you can see if you
investigate. (There are all these extra little linkages automatically
opening keys and whatnot:-) But essentially the lattice becomes wider
spaced as you go down.

I own two basset-clarinets, both designed by Ted Planas. One is an
extension of an 1850's instrument by Doelling, that I play with modern
orchestras, and the other is a simpler reconstruction by Daniel Bangham
based on a Viennese instrument by Kaspar Tauber in Nick Shackleton's
collection, pitched at A@-----. In the first instrument, the basset
extension is essentially chromatic, in the sense that, playing low E,
all the keys below are standing open.

On the other instrument, however, playing low E, only the D and C keys
are open, so the extension is diatonic or whole tone. The D# and C# are
obtained by pushing D+D# and C+C# respectively.

So in both these cases the tonehole lattice is 'even' in the basset
register, but more closely spaced on the first instrument.

Both work satisfactorily. And because depressing the basset keys
doesn't automatically shut the low E key on either instrument, you can
get resonance effects on both chalumeau and clarinet notes involving the
right hand and also on notes in the third register, by closing the
basset keys while playing those other notes. As we know from Benade,
the clarinet 'looks longer' to higher frequencies, because they
penetrate further into the tonehole lattice before reflection.

(This doesn't mean, by the way, that the higher *partials* of a *low*
tone are flat. They are always whole multiples of the fundamental up
to the cutoff frequency, a fact that is often misunderstood. It's just
that those partials don't sit accurately in the resonance peaks of the
tube, which *are* flatter, and which you obtain when you 'overblow' to
get the next mode of oscillation.)

As Simon indicates elsewhere for him, I find that the basset keys have
much less effect on LH notes.

By the way, Simon, are your basset notes linked to the E key, so that
you can get the low notes just by fingering F plus the basset keys?
Because in one way that's an advantage for fluency, as on the bass, but
in another way it limits your use of these resonance fingerings. I'd be
interested to know which way Stephen Fox jumps on this one.

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

... Dessert? I'll take a piece of cherry 3.1415926535...

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