Klarinet Archive - Posting 000244.txt from 2010/10

From: "Heinemann, Stephen" <sjh@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] New York Times, Oct. 22
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:30:19 -0400

> Subject: Re: [kl] New York Times, Oct. 22
> =

> Steve Hieneman, it seems that you have confused the names of the clarinet=
s.=A0 I
> assume you played a 'contrabass' in school and that the 'octocontrabass' =
is
> the horn you had never heard of, right?=A0
> =

> Wayne Thompson

Hi, Wayne. According to the (probably incorrect, with apologies to all)
octave designations I gave in my original post, what I played was a
contrabass (with a low note of D1). However, I distinctly remember it being
called an "octocontrabass," and that it was handed to me with great care and
concern and the warning that it was a very rare instrument -- possibly
unique, although that seems unlikely since it had a manufacturer's brand on
it (LeBlanc, if I recall correctly, which is evidently quite questionable).
If "octocontrabass" translates loosely as "really, really low, enough to
shiver your molars in ways that a contrabass never could," then this
instrument was certainly an octocontrabass.

> (The presence of an octocontrabass at San
> Francisco State=A0would be of very great interest.)

I would think that any clarinetist in the Bay Area would be interested in
tracking down this instrument. But keep in mind that the events I described
took place thirty years ago, so whatever it was may well no longer exist.

Regarding my initial statement: I may have reconstructed the octave
designations incorrectly. The correct designations would be as follows,
given C4 =3D Middle C, and figuring low E on a Bb instrument:
Clarinet: D3 (about 147 vibrations per second)
Bass clarinet: D2 (~ 73.5 vps)
Contrabass clarinet: D1 (lowest D on standard piano, ~37 vps)
Octocontrabass clarinet: D0 (lowest D on Boesendorfer piano, ~18 molar-
rattling vps, or slightly below the hazy point of being perceived
as a pitch)
Suboctocontrabass clarinet (if it even exists, which I now doubt): D(-1)
(about 9 vps, the speed of sixteenth notes at quarter=3D135)

Disclaimer: my knowledge of acoustics is probably insufficient to have
included some of the above information.

> I wrote:
> Steve Hieneman, it seems that.....
>
> I apologize....
> It's Steve Heineman, of course.

Close enough. =

All best,

Steve Heinemann
Bradley University

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