 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2004-11-28 22:32
Why are all (?) the fingering charts in the books all presented from the point of view of the instructors? (Answer: because the books are all _written_ by the instructors!)
But when I look "down" at my clarinet in playing position and then look at a chart (to find a fingering I have forgotten - a beginner's problem, to be sure - or to check for a seldom used alternate fingering) the chart is upsidedown! Left is on the right; right is on the left; and the keys and holes that are the furthest away from me are the nearest on the chart, at the "bottom" of the pictures. I have to do mental gynastics to put my fingers in the right places.
Why make life (more) difficult for learners, or re-learners?
It is not difficult to get and print a good fingering chart -- such as Linda Swihart's <http://www.biochem.purdue.edu/~swihart/> -- cut out the pictures out, turn them 180 degrees around and put them back together again. Once done, it sure is easier to spot the "right" fingering.
So why can't the authors do that for me, when they write the books and draw the pictures?
JDS
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Author: Contra
Date: 2004-11-28 22:48
I don't think I've ever seen an upside-down fingering chart. All the one's I've seen are mirrored
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-11-28 23:22
Sorry John, there are better on-line fingering charts than the one you referenced above: http://www.biochem.purdue.edu/~swihart/
I would neither recommend or tell beginners about Linda Swihart's primary suggested fingering for D#6/Eb6. Especially when there are at least 6 other choices which are better.
If you need an on-line fingering chart site, Tim Reichard's site (which I've contributed many fingerings to) is much more comprehensive.
http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/
For fingering texts, there are a few good choices (Ridenour, Sim, etc...)
BTW -The Alan Sim book is written in "upside down" notation.
...GBK
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2004-11-29 00:10
I can't speak for the musicality of various fingerings, what I liked about Linda's chart was that it was all pictorial - no numberings for the various keys & holes. So I could cut and paste to invert the pictures. The sites you reference are pictorial, too, of course, but a tad minimalist - but that is a matter of taste only.
And all the books (I have seen) number the keys/holes differently, too. I suppose that is to avoid copyright difficulties.
Gripe, gripe, gripe......
Could you give be a biblographic reference, title at least, to the Alan Sim book. Many thanks.
JDS
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-11-29 03:03
Clarinet Fingerings (also known as 303 Clarinet Fingerings and 276 Trills) by Alan Sim. Twydds Music, U.K.
...GBK
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2004-11-29 12:47
FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-NINE!!
Good grief!!
Maybe I'll take up the piano - there were, at last count, only 88 fingerings for it. And they are spread out over about three times as many octaves.
Thank you for the reference...
JDS
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-11-29 13:21
John Stackpole wrote:
> Maybe I'll take up the piano - there were, at last count, only
> 88 fingerings for it.
Ah, no. You have 10 fingers, and which one you use to hit which key when "depends" - on which way you're travelling, the distance and grouping of the next few notes and the fingering for those notes, how hard you need to strike it (them), how many reps, and more.
While there are only 88 keys, there are thousands of possibilities in how you approach and recede from each key. Editors put in many "suggested" fingerings (a few of which seem to imply that having a 16" spread on each hand to be normal" 
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2004-11-29 13:57
True, true, that comes to 10! (factorial) * 88 possibilities, or more (plus one for your nose playing middle C), but I was contemplating playing just one note at a time - as I can do (mostly) on a clarinet.
That's why I took up the clarinet - you only have to play one note at a time. Piece of cake! Boy was I fooled!
JDS
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2004-11-29 14:58
As to the original question, my guess is that the fingering charts are the way they are because that's how most people see clarinets. In fact, it's how I picture mine in my mind, so would personally prefer them the way they are. (Which is good because I think it would be rather clumsy for me to stand up and look over the top of my bass clarinet to check a fingering. Even clumsier to hold it up to see the keys as John does with his clarinet.)
Now, that isn't to say that there is anything wrong with what John proposes. He may be the first to have thought of it and if it works for him, great! It might work better for others as well.
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2004-12-01 06:11
While the numbers of fingerings on the Boehm clarinet are myriad, many of them are like the storied love making positions of the Kama Sutra. Thus, position 121 is like 120, only with the fingers crossed, and so on.
I have found that you will get differing results with clarinets of the same model (by the same maker), so having nigh on an thousand available is only really giving you a template to learn from. For example, you know that fingering #12 for high D# is this that and t' other, then you try it on your horn and see what happens. Sometimes the magic works (a perfectly in tune note), sometimes you've got to make it work (one that's passible, but that needs some correction), and sometimes it's time to try something besides crossing your fingers (so to speak) and move on to another.
My lead alto player (who started on bassoon, transferred to sax before college, and is largely a self taught clarinet player) was struggling with a passage in some Artie Shaw stuff one night. When I asked him why he was having trouble with the arpeggio (which was a simple one in a flat key), he said that he couldn't get the Bb (above the staff) to fit with the other notes. It was at that point that I introduced him (and another sax player working through clarinet issues) to the long, "one and one" Bb.
Mind you, the same note exists on every saxophone ever made. However, sax players have a prejudice against "one and one", claiming that it is badly out of tune and "impure" compared to the frigging bis key or side key alternatives. (That I manage to voice the note on my three saxes without this problem is beside the point, I guess...) So, they all soldier on, slipping and flipping their fingers, and transfer the sax tuning ideas over to the clarinet, all the while missing out on the joy of a rippling series of notes "up the holes".
Jim was extremely pleased with the knowledge that I gave him. Of course, I first learned of the articulated nature of the low C# key on modern saxophones in much the same way.
My grandfather was my "adviser" when I picked up my saxophone skills, and he had done his playing (in theater and movie orchestras in the 1920's) on old Conn horns, not blessed with this feature. He taught me what he knew en passant, as it were, and I marched on in ignorance with modern saxophones that had the little finger keys all hooked up to play C# whenever one was depressed, blissfully unaware of the feature which was hiding there all of the time.
I learned it from a tenor player on a rock job, where I was getting arm cramps from trying to play Punkin, Punkin while lifting my little finger over to the C# key every time the note was played (which was very often). That one little bit of knowledge made all of the difference in the world.
It's always something...
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2004-12-01 14:37
Fine info, Don P and Terry, and rest ot thread, I sure cant add to it, BUT, back to the "upper left", I see the charts as being similar to maps, which are conventionaly viewed from the South, at least by northern hemisphere map makers. Comments? Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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