Klarinet Archive - Posting 000316.txt from 2002/12

From: George Kidder <gkidder@-----.org>
Subj: [kl] Intonation (was Bass Clarinet in A)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 16:25:19 -0500

At 11:31 12/12/02 -0500, Lelia wrote:
>But I would rather
>not hear a bass clarinet struggle with intonation in the key of B; and
>notating an extracted part in C-flat carries transpositional purity to an
>extreme that really is ridiculous.

There seem to be three issues here. First is the difficulty in remembering
which notes are flatted or sharped, and I agree that a good musician (not
me) should be able to do this "on his head." Second is the mechanics of
fingering in remote keys, which becomes progressively more difficult as the
number of sharps or flats increases. On the bass clarinet, this is
exacerbated by the size and inertia of the mechanism, which makes it more
likely to be sluggish and clanky. Both of these are real, but have been
discussed before.

Leila's comment above, however, implies that the clarinet's intonation is
not tempered (i.e., "just" or some other system), or not properly tempered
(by accident or by the nature of the instrument.) Granted that no clarinet
is perfect, and there will always be some "wild" notes that need attention,
and that these will differ instrument to instrument, the question
remains: Is it in fact true that playing in remote keys produces
intonation problems?

I am particularly interested in this right now, since I am trying with some
success to tame an old Kohlert bass clarinet, and have been wondering if
some of my problems might be due to the instrument not being made to play a
tempered scale.

Comments?

>

George Kidder
Bar Harbor, ME

---------------------------------------------------------------------