Klarinet Archive - Posting 000151.txt from 2008/05

From: clarni bass <clarnibass@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Clarinet transposition
Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 07:01:21 -0400

Hello

I'm interested to know why/how, historically, the
clarinet became a transposed instrument (the regular
Bb soprano clarinet).

Since I have no idea really I am guessing either the
first was in C, and because there is a family of
instrument others are necessarily transposed, and the
Bb for some reason "survived" the most.

Or the first was already transposed, and was decided
to be this way because of the keys most common in that
time compared with the fingerings?

Or maybe some other reason I haven't considered, but
I'm pretty sure it had to be a concious decision at
some point.

Thanks!

Nitai

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