 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: PJ
Date: 2003-03-30 22:01
Hi all!
I bought my current Bb/A set about 10 years ago in college and they are Buffet R-13's. I've had many great years of play out of them and with regular maintainence have seen them work wonderfully. I know that due to the nature of the wood (all woods, actually) that the horns will go through periods of shrinking and swelling over time until they begin to slow down somewhat.
A while back I noticed my Bb began to play a little sharp. At first, one might assume that it was the player and not the horn. Given this, I checked to make sure that I wasn't biting down, air support was good and all that. Next, I got out my A and warmed it up. It was dead on "0" all they way through the horn with only the little discrepencies it always has on certain notes. I've tried a longer barrel on my Bb and it seemed to do the trick until I noticed it going up again. At the present time it is playing 20 cents sharp on a 67mm barrel! I had a collegue of mine play it with their set up and mine to see if they got the same results and they did. A 68mm barrel brought it down quite a bit, but come on...a 68??? That's not going to solve every note and I can't lip it down THAT much.
For the repair folks on the board, is it possible for my Bb to have shrunk this much? Also, is there something else I should look for that I may be missing that would cause this to happen? Like I said, it is sharp all they way up and down with the exception of a couple of notes being closer to "0" than others.
Should I ditch the horn and look into a new one? (Please tell me this is not so!).
Thanks in advance for any help,
PJ
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Author: Dee
Date: 2003-03-30 23:37
Take it in to a repair tech and have them clean all the tone holes and check all the pad heights. Even a slight bit of invisible grunge in the register key, for example, can throw off your entire clarion and altissimo ranges. Pad heights can do the same.
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Author: PJ
Date: 2003-03-31 00:02
I cleaned all the tone holes and register tube just after I figured out it wasn't my embouchure, etc.. Key height could be a possibility. Anyone else have any ideas?
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Author: Wes
Date: 2003-03-31 04:17
Hi!
In 1993, I bought a new, old stock R13 Bb clarinet made in 1971. Using the 66mm barrell, it was too low in pitch with my favorite ML M3 mouthpiece that I bought from ML in the late 50's. I had to use a 64 mm barrell to play with a good band. 10 years later, I find that the pitch has raised so that I am comfortable with a 67 mm Moennig barrell with the same group and mouthpiece. I believe that the wood shrank a little, enlarging the bore as I used it.
Aside from using a 67 or 68 mm barrel, I would consider trying a different, lower pitched mouthpiece. From the Zinner blanks, I've faced several mouthpieces and they all have been great but quite low pitch compared to the average mouthpiece. The blanks cost $30 at International. I've also got a Portnoy BPO3 that is low in pitch.
If it got really high, I've seen an instrument which had a bead of epoxy run down the bottom side of the bore to lower the pitch, a desperate measure indeed. Good luck!
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Author: graham
Date: 2003-03-31 07:16
Back in the 1980s, my six year old B & H 1010 started going sharp. By that time B & H had given up making clarinets but had a repair department which was happy enough to just bore it out again, after which it was much improved. They seemed quite laid back about doing that and the fact that it had shifted. So, I think clarinets can do what you are describing.
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