Klarinet Archive - Posting 000212.txt from 2004/01

From: Nick Shackleton <njs5@-----.ac.uk>
Subj: [kl] Boehm and Albert Systems
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 04:51:33 -0500

David Glen wrote:
>Leaving the mouthpiece-reed question entirely out of this because it is a
very big factor of itself, >the Boehm clarinet tends to have a longer
section than the Oehler at the bottom of the >instrument which is conical.
I'm not aware of the "Albert" system being any different in the bore >than
the Oehler or German. Please correct me if this is not so. The tone
difference in the width >of the bore, as I understand it, would be only
secondary to the shape of the bore (meaning >cylindrical/conical and here
leaving out the swellings like for example Buffet do at the barrel
and >upper section). The number of toneholes would be poor third place.
>Someone mentioned trying to imitate the "Albert" sound by using a Boosey
& Hawkes model >1010. This would probably be counterproductive as the 1010
has not only a wide bore but also >much flaring at the bottom. I wonder if
anybody has seriously tried this? (I mean substiting a >1010 for an Albert
system.)My suggestion would be to try a so-called "Reform-Boehm". This
has >a similar bore to the Oehler/Berman system but with the Boehm keys.
Aside from all this, I think >the bigger difference can be made with the
mouthpiece reed combination (which I wasn't going to >start on) and of
course working on one's own embouchure and imagination."
This is almost totally wrong. Traditional Albert system clarinets have a
lot of flare at the bottom whereas Oehler system clarinets have almost no
flare (this is why professional Oehler system clarinets have thumb keys to
raise the pitch of the lowest two notes). So a Reform Boehm is the last
kind of Boehm one needs to substitute for an Albert system for jazz.

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