Klarinet Archive - Posting 000185.txt from 2006/04

From: "Lacy, Edwin" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] info on "McIntire" clarinet
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 16:07:30 -0400

<<<Can anybody give me any information on a "McIntire" fingering system
Bb clarinet?>>>

I once had a student who had a McIntire clarinet. I played on it a
little, and found it to be a really ingenious idea. The main problem
was that the clarinets on which they installed this fingering system
were not the greatest. I think they were mid-line instruments of one of
the major manufacturers. They may have been Normandie or Noblet
clarinets from LeBlanc.

I am a woodwind doubler, and so I'm used to negotiating all the various
fingering eccentricities of the woodwind instruments, so I found getting
used to the McIntire fingering system not to be too much of a problem.
I suspect that someone who has played Boehm system clarinet all of their
life might find it a little more difficult.

There are many passages that are simpler on the McIntire. For example,
rapid shakes between written middle C and the Bb on the 3rd line are
next to impossible on the Boehm system, but is a piece of cake on the
McIntire, where it is accomplished by moving only one finger. (Trill
the thumb.)

That's only one example. And, the I found it really a pleasure to have
all the throat tones in tune and with a much more solid tone quality
than we are all accustomed to. I wish that they had been able to put
the mechanism on a really good quality clarinet.

Ed Lacy
University of Evansville

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