Klarinet Archive - Posting 000037.txt from 2005/06
From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Re: Bb versus C Clarinet?
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 19:44:07 -0400
There are two things in your memo that require some heavy-duty
rethinking on your part. You blame the difficult in
manufacturing the keywork to allow rapid passage to be played.
Not so! While that may have been a small problem, the larger one
was that it was almost impossible in that era to add a new note
that was in tune in both registers of an instrument that overblew
a 12th. To some degree, that is still a problem on cheaper
clarinets.
The other thing you bring up that requires some thought is you
"today we have good instrements" argument, saying that we have
fast hands, good instruments, lots of keys, and, therefore, the
problem has been resolved. Not so! You are presuming that the
only thing that matters when you play a clarinet is that the
correct pitch is achieved. I don't think you mean that, though
your words say it. If that were truly the case (i.e., only pitch
of the note is important), then the issue of timbre is irrelevant
and you can play anything you like on any instrument you like, as
long as the correct pitch (and register) is properly achieved.
And you don't mean that, or at least I hope you do not.
That is the traditional and very flawed argument put forward by
those who do not consider the influence of timbre and character
of sound as issues to be considered.
But I'm getting to you. You just need more refinement in your
understanding of what comes out when you play a clarinet.
Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Roberts [mailto:timr@-----.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 4:03 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: RE: [kl] Re: Bb versus C Clarinet?
On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 10:26:45 -0700, "dnleeson"
<dnleeson@-----.net>
wrote:
>Occasionally, one reaches a point in a discussion that is so
very
>relevant to the history of the clarinet, that it is worth
>stopping for a moment to point out that the note below from Tim
>Roberts is exactly such a point.
>
>He is about three steps away from a significant breakthrough in
>his knowledge about WHY the clarinet is a transposing
instrument,
>how that came about, and the consequences of that activity.
>
You only noticed this because my understanding is based mostly on
words
that you, yourself, wrote, having passed through whatever
inefficient
filter is present in my brain.
This whole procession seems so absurdly accidental to me. The
earliest
clarinets, as I understand it, lacked keywork for alternate and
cross-fingerings that are necessary for enable rapid fingering in
complicated key signatures on an instrument overblowing on the
12th, in
part because of the difficulty of manufacturing such keywork.
Because
of that, we ended up with the early "rule" that clarinet parts
could not
be written in more than 2 flats or more than 1 sharp. This rule,
in
turn, required that orchestral clarinetists possess multiple
clarinets
in multiple keys, in order to accomodate arbitrary key
signatures.
Now, those manufacturing difficulties did not last very long in
the
history of the clarinet. Albert, Oehler, Boehm, all of these
guys had
pretty good general-case solutions. But by that time, performers
were
already accustomed to clarinets in multiple keys. And,
presumably, at
least one composer must have noticed that clarinets in different
keys
had slightly different timbres. At some point, we go from
multiple
clarinet keys because of manufacturing problems, to multiple
clarinet
keys because of desired tonality.
And so we come to today. For the most part, a player on a modern
17-key
or 18-key clarinet can handle whatever key signature the composer
throws
at him. And, because of improvements in manufacturing
techniques,
clarinets of different keys sound more and more alike than in the
past.
There are those who will assert to the death that a C clarinet
always
sounds more (insert colorful adjective here) than a Bb clarinet,
which
in turn sounds more (insert different but equally colorful
adjective
here) than an A clarinet. I am dubious, but only in private.
So, because of early shortcomings in manufacturing processes, we
are
forever left with the legacy of clarinets in multiple keys. It
just
doesn't seem to be as neat and centrally-planned as one would
like in a
legacy.
Consider the saxophone as a counterexample. Developed a century
and a
half later, it came out of the starting blocks with better
manufacturing
processes. Because of that, we find saxophones keyed in rather
large
steps: soprano Bb, alto Eb, tenor Bb, baritone Eb, bass Bb.
Smaller
increments were not necessary, just as smaller increments were
not
*necessary* in the clarinets of that day. But by that time, it
was too
late.
--
Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.
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