 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2004-12-02 16:46
While slumming at the local Guitar Center chain here in Houston (I buy some of my groups audio stuff from them), I noticed a type of guitar stand that impressed me quite a bit.
The bottom of the stand is pretty much the normal two brackets to hold the body of the guitar. However, the upper end, which secures the neck, has an interesting little mechanism that "traps" the neck in place. It is actuated by the weight of the neck leaning back into the trap, which in turn causes two small arms to rotate into place to hold the neck in position.
Has anyone seen a bass clarinet stand that traps the upper end of the horn along the same principles? I'd like to avail myself of the "vertical" style stand for the bass, instead of the one that grasps the bell, but all of the vertical stands that I have seen have relied on the weight of the bass clarinet as it leans forward as the sole "positioning security".
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-12-02 17:17
I used to have a LaVoz bari sax stand that worked on the same principle, but I found it annoying to use because frequently the hinged arms would get prematurely rotated or knocked 'shut' prior to my putting the bell of the horn into the 'trap' , causing a delayed and fumbled operation (not a good thing during fast horn switches). Might this guitar stand suffer from the same drawback?
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Author: allencole
Date: 2004-12-02 17:35
Because the mechanism on the guitar stand requires the weight of the instrument to trap it (and the lifting of that weight to release it) there's no real advantage that I can see over a normal bass clarinet stand of the K&M variety. After all, it appears that the mechanism you describe would release the horn if its weight were to shift.
The gripping mechanism in the LaVoz sax stand was designed not to 'trap' the horn in place, but to keep the horn from rotating in the horseshoe under the burden of its own weight. That allowed a sax stand which took the horn at around a 45 degree angle, as opposed to stands which use weight of a nearly vertical instrument pulling downward against a fixed horseshoe.
Because of the rods that run along the bass clarinet, I think that it would be difficult to have a gripping scheme at the top that wouldn't do more harm than good. Another consideration of the guitar stands is their light weight. Having your bass clarinet on one of these might have a level of security more like keeping your clarinet on a pack-a-stand in a crowded room.
Guitars have better properties for stands than most other instruments. I've seen one tiny guitar stand that sits on the edge of a table or counter and allows the guitar to be hung downward from it vertically, supported and balanced entirely by gravity.
I haven't seen the mechanism you described on guitar stands but will keep my eye open over the next week or so. Do you know what brand of stand you saw?
Allen Cole
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2004-12-02 21:48
I have no idea as to what the brand was, and when I came back it wasn't there any more. Asking the figurative morons who they hire for help is like talking to the proverbial stone wall, so that approach is out as well.
I think that one of the features of this stand was that the weight of the instrument pulled down on the top slightly, and that in turn activated the "locking mechanism". You had to "unload" the mechanism to get it to move out of the way.
The current "long stands" for bass clarinet just have the horn resting in a sort of "cup" up at the neck end. A nudge the wrong way (i.e., back from the front of the stand) means a free falling instrument out of the stand. WIth the guitar stand mechanism, there would be two arms behind it to keep it from being pushed backwards out of the "cup".
The bass clarinet version would be heavier, of course, than the equivalent guitar device. That it would be significantly heavier than the current "long" bass clarinet stand is probably not the case.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-12-03 14:14
IMHO, the only way to keep a bass or contra safe is to lay it carefully on a piece of carpet on the floor, or on a carpet-covered percussion stand behind you. Given the tall, tippy and heavy design, even a contrabassoon stand isn't completely stable. The problem is not so much holding the top steady as having the whole thing fall over.
Quodlibet http://www.quodlibet.com/ makes a Sax-On sax stand that holds the instrument in playing position. It's presumably adaptable to bass or contra clarinet. For doubling, you would put the bass in the stand off to the side, rotate your body that way and start playing.
Vince Giordano sits on a rotating stool and does a triple -- string bass in front, tuba to the left and bass sax to the right, each held in its own stand in playing position.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: John O'Janpa
Date: 2004-12-03 14:26
One of the bass clarinet stands I have seen recently has a velcro strap that holds the clarinet in place.
I'm sure that with some glue and some velcro, this setup could be adapted to other stands as well.
If you don't trust velcro you could install straps with snaps.
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Author: clarinetcurious
Date: 2004-12-03 17:38
http://www.herculesstands.com/guitars/GS412B.html is probably what you saw.
I like the Hercules Guitar stands a lot for my guitars and basses, they are well made and superbly engineered (germany). As to wether it can be used for a bass clarinet I have never tried it.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-12-03 17:59
I just order the bassoonist on my left to hold my bass clarinet for me when I desire to rest. I figure it's the least she can do for me since I'm doing her the favor of doubling all her notes, right?
DOH!
![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
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Author: allencole
Date: 2004-12-04 17:10
Locking mechanisms and/or velcro might create levels of noise not acceptable in a concert hall, show pit, or recording studio. Velcro would definitely be a problem. I have to watch it just using my click barrel.
That quodlibet bass clarinet stand looks intriguing, but still looks like it could be easily tipped over, and may require you to have a lot more space around your seat. I would be less concerned about having my horn bumped in a standard K&M bassoon stand.
Allen Cole
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2004-12-04 18:29
The guitar is not heavy at the top like a bass clarinet. Also, my guitar stands (that are made as you describe) are built with a moving bottom part that cradles the guitar. A bass clarinet wouldn't work on it unless you secured that part so it wouldn't rock and roll the instrument out onto the floor (no pun intended--but taken if necessary).
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Author: allencole
Date: 2004-12-06 05:58
That's a good point. Guitars are bottom-heavy (particularly the electric ones) and this causes them to maintain a low center of gravity even on a lightweight stand.
The bass clarinet has such a high center of gravity that I couldn't lean it against even the heavy K&M stand if the bottom of the instrument were in contact with the floor. Without the downward pull from the weight of the instrument in the cup, even a stand twice as heavy would fall right over.
Maybe a piece of string hung from the ceiling...<g>
Allen Cole
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2004-12-06 14:58
The top heavy aspect is why I've always used the horseshoe stands in the past. It's a bit harder to pick the horn from the stand, but there is some positive contact.
The K&M stand seems to be heavy enough to hold the extended range horns in a stable situation (and any stability problems could be solved by putting them on a more substantial/broader base). After all, I've done that with the Anderson stand, which I do not like to trust in its original configuration in most situtations.
If the "trigger" for the "clamp arms" at the top of the stand was activated by the weight of the horn placed against the bottom cup, then it would work just fine. The "clamp arms" don't really hold the instrument, they would just "trap it" within the three walls of the upper fixture. You would have to first put the upper end of the horn into the open side of the "U" shaped upper fixture, and then set the peg or base of the horn into the lower cup. As the weight is placed on the base, it would utilize a lever to rotate the arms into place around the upper part of the horn.
It works quite well on the guitar stands, although the weight issue on one of them is applied by the tuning screws (skull shaped or not) on the side of the end of the neck. That would have to change on a real instrument stand.
The other alternative is to angle the stand to a greater degree (like my bassoon stand), where more of the weight of the instrument is used to hold it in place. The "center of balance" of my bassoon stand (a no-name one that I got for three bucks at a clearance sale) is pretty far forward, and you'd really have to wack the fag to get it to bounce out of the stand.
I don't think that I'd like that in a bass clarinet stand though; too short of horn swap times. We're doing a Lush Life arrangement of three Christmas songs (an old Patty Paige medley, I think) for a job in a week or two, and it has a quick drop and snatch for a critical bass clarinet "cute" part. I can barely (as in with a beat to spare) get the horn up and ready to play after putting the baritone in the stand. Getting it back in the horseshoe stand and resuming the baritone is even more difficult. (I'll likely just keep the baritone behind my elbows when playing the bass part off of my thumb.) No way that I could easily "thread the needle" to put the horn on a K & M stand and be sure that it was all in place and leaning correctly.
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