Klarinet Archive - Posting 000200.txt from 2002/11

From: "Thiel, Mark" <mark.thiel@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: reverse Mozart
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 12:41:48 -0500

Walter Grabner wrote:

. . .
>This summer I started making Low C "extenstions" for low Eb basses. Of
course, different models have different bore sizes and varying problems with
the E-B, and F-C, 12ths.

. . .
>I was also hoping to come up with a good alternate Bb, fingered, as you
suggested, with the low Eb key.

>I was not able to find any permutation that gave me the extremely good
tuning for the Eb, D, Db, and C, that also allowed the Eb-Bb 12th to work at
all.

>I dont have a Buffett 1193. Anyone out there with one, how do the low 12ths
line up? Can up use the low Eb fingering to produce an acceptable Bb, or D
for an acceptble A?

Walter, I've played around with these extended notes in the clarion a bit on
my 1193 and found that the tuning is not terrribly bad _provided_ that you
don't push the register key down. That, of course, is a rather large
proviso, since for me it's practically impossible to start these notes
without register venting and sometimes hard to hold them there once started.
The lower register vent/Bb hole is a fairly large hole and of course only
intended to vent clarion B through D#. With register key down, the Bb is
quite sharp, the A practically a A# and
the lowet two notes just sound terrible. (Does the size of this hole also
help explain the wide E/B twelfths in a lot of horns?) The (l.h. 1)
altissimo vent is somewhat useful as a vent for these notes, though it's too
far down the horn and rather small to be effective.
The difference in tone quality is also a deterrent to using these notes,
though I'm not sure how to descibe it (too covered? not chocolatey enough?
too mauve?).

So what is the "lower extended clarion" good for? Well I wouldn't hesitate
to play say a Bb-D tremolo using it, at least if no one was holding a tuner
on me at the moment. I was also playing around with a turn: C-B-A-B (in the
Hummel bassoon concerto, I think) some time ago. I found I could play the A
marginally more smoothly by hitting the D thumb key and releasing the
register key than I could by hitting the A key and releasing the register.

Mark Thiel

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