Klarinet Archive - Posting 000195.txt from 2006/04

From: "George Huba" <ghuba@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Re: McIntyre/Mazzeo
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 12:13:24 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: Margaret Thornhill [mailto:clarinetstudio@-----.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:05 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] Re: McIntyre/Mazzeo

Dan wrote:
> The problem that Ed Lacy describes about switching from one
> instrument to another is what sunk the Mazzeo system. I always
> thought that the idea was brilliant, but it was difficult for
> some people (including myself) to master the fingering of the
> instrument. I once mentioned this to Mazzeo and he got mad as
> hell at me for speaking about it.
>
> Dan Leeson
> DNLeeson@-----.net
>
>
Though I don't know the McIntyre clarinet, after Dan and George Huba I
am probably the only other person on this list who actually knows the
Mazzeo system, and the only person who plays it as a principal
instrument, (unless Sherman Friedland is lurking) so I can't resist
adding a little more information.

The curious may want to know that the Mazzeo really is just a Boehm
clarinet with only one (no matter what Mazzeo claimed) note fingered
differently--the throat B-flat--which is normally fingered with the
throat A key plus the rings of the right hand (and yes, it is/was a
brilliant innovation.)

This seems far less arcane than the description of fingerings for the
McIntyre.

The technical issue for people attempting to switch back and forth is
very simple to explain. Most people were (and are) taught to "cover"
their throat notes with their right hand, an idea with its roots in the
early, non-chromatic history of the instrument. This is incompatible
with the Mazzeo. The reason I can switch back and forth between regular
Boehm Buffets, my eight key clarinets, and the Mazzeo is because I
un-learned this technique many years ago as a student, which as I recall
took less than a month. I simply don't do it .

I do have to concentrate to remember which clarinet I am actually
playing, though. (It's actually worse after playing early clarinet,
since I keep trying to put in obsolete fingerings everywhere if I'm not
careful.) Woodwind doublers would have had little difficulty adopting
the Mazzeo.

Margaret Thornhill

http://www.margaretthornhill.com

------

For me, and I am an amateur who has not over-learned (for decades) one
system of fingering or another, switching between a standard Boehm and the
Mazzeo Selmer takes a very minimal readjustment that takes a minute or two
of head-set readjustment to remember to not cover holes and make the
alternate Bb fingering(s) [and if you do use the standard throat Bb
fingering, it "works but just sounds weaker]. But, my technique is
rudimentary and I stop and think on all systems. I suspect that making the
switch between the systems would be very easy for beginning student and
progressively harder for intermediate and professional players because of
the over-learning aspect. This is not unlike the case of any over-learned
behavior.

The McIntyre clarinet is a different matter. Even for somebody whose Boehm
technique is rudimentary, you have to stop and think A LOT about the
fingerings for G#, A, Bb on the McIntyre. Personally, I suspect that even if
these keys had been on an R13, nobody would have wanted them because the
technique is just "odd." It feels strange, requires you to stop and think on
movements that are automatic even for a beginner (lift a finger and go
higher, not the reverse for three notes), and has "inverse logic." It is
also a mechanical nightmare to keep in adjustment (think Rube Goldberg
device here or a plumbers nightmare).

George

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