Klarinet Archive - Posting 000389.txt from 2004/09

From: jab <jab@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Alto Clarinet Questions
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:04:42 -0400

One thing I'll say is that the middle register has two interesting
points:
1. It'll sound more like a bass clarinet than a soprano, in that range;
2. There's a change-in-plumbing that happens roughly at fourth-line D
or fourth-space E, in which the register key opens a different hole.
Older instruments use a different left-thumb-key above those notes
for the register key, and so you'll want to examine your fingering
charts
since the fingerings in that register are slightly different from
the
soprano [for some models].

The comments above "use alto clarinet reeds" and "investigate a
better mouthpiece" are places to start, of course!

-Jeff Bowles

ps. If anyone ever offers for you to play on a nice rosewood
E-flat contralto, jump on it!

On Sep 22, 2004, at 12:10 PM, Robert Reyes wrote:

> Hello. I've been given the task of playing the alto clarinet in my
> school's
> clarinet choir. I have a few questions. I've had the thing for a
> week now
> and I've had mixed results, one minute it sounds like a musical
> instrument,
> the next like a dog whistle. I'm using Vandoren 2 1/2 alto sax reeds,
> a
> rovner tenor sax ligature ( it was the only ligature that would fit on
> the
> mouthpiece), and a Geo M. Bundy 3 mouth piece. The instrument is a
> plastic
> bundy. Here are my questions, is the upper octave suppose to sound
> airy(I
> don't mean d above the staff, I mean middle C to C above the staff)?
> What
> other mouthpieces should I try, and I heard there is a mouthpiece that
> is
> for alto clarinet that was made just for alto sax reeds. How much of
> the
> mouthpiece should go into my mouth?

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