 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Kyle
Date: 2002-02-21 23:00
I have to make a model of a clarinet for music class. My idea was to take a peice of wood, paint it black. Then get a funnel and paint it black, and put it on the end of the wood. For the keys I'm going to use silver paint and silver pipe cleaners. Does this sound good? If anyone has any other ideas, please post them. Thanks!
~Kyle~
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Author: David Stringer
Date: 2002-02-21 23:53
Hi Kyle,
I would hit the plumbing section of the hardware store. I bet you could even make something playable for under ten dollars with the parts found there.
By "playable" I mean capable of squawking, not necessarily a pretty sight.
David
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Author: charlie c
Date: 2002-02-22 01:12
Hi, Kyle - David has the right idea. A trip to the hardware or home improvement store should yield parts to make a playable (?) instrument for just a few dollars. Take your clarinet mouthpiece and find plastic plumbing fixtures that accomodate your mp, and get some plastic pvc. You might even measure your clarinet ( I'm assuming you are a clarinet player ) and cut the pipe to length. It would be nice if the bore (inside diameter) of the pipe was the same as your clarinet. Then you could drill a few holes to make some kind of scale. Like was said, it might not be pretty, but who knows, you just might be another Kenny G ;-) (cheap shot), sorry. Lots of Luck, and I might even try something like that also. Sounds like a lot of fun. Charlie C.
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2002-02-22 20:29
For an even more elaborate, chromatic home-brew clarinet, see Benade, "Horns, Strings & Harmony." However, even the $5 clarinet is a lot of work. You can shortcut it by starting with a plastic alto recorder for maybe $20, or maybe souvenir shop bamboo flute or pennywhistle for $5.
As a kid, I made "oboes" out of large waxed paper drinking straws, designed for thick milk shakes. (They're probably not available any more, having been replaced by plastic.) If you can find one, flatten one end and trim off a tiny bit along each side for about 1/4" to make the reed. Then make finger holes with a large pin.
A remarkably good french horn can be made out of a mouthpiece, a length of garden hose and a funnel. There's a famous recording of Dennis Brain playing the Hosepipe in a movement from the Leopold Mozart posthorn concerto. It's part of the Hoffnung Astronomical Music Festival, which I'm sure has been reissued on CD.
You could probably fit a clarinet mouthpiece to the end of a piece of garden hose using duck tape. Most hose is reinforced, so finger holes would be hard to cut evenly, but it's probably no harder to work with than the plastic, and you get to use a real mouthpiece.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Lawrence
Date: 2002-02-23 00:08
A slightly simpler version of the $5.00 clarinet is described in "Making Simple Musical Instruments" by Bart Hopkin. What he describes is a Chalumeau, a forerunner of the clarinet. Lots of other neat instruments to make, including a wooden saxophone. Kinda' scary!
Lawrence
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-02-23 06:11
Trevor Robinson's *The Amateur Wind Instrument Maker* includes details of an impressive, although much more elaborate clarinet.
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Author: Micaela
Date: 2002-02-23 16:31
If your school has a ceramics studio, clay would make great keys and you could extrude a tube for the body. (I almost used this technique for my final project for a pottery class but decided to make a clock instead). If you made all the pieces and then fired them separately, you could then glaze them and stick them together with glaze on the second firing.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-02-24 10:18
I once had a broken leg and the adjustable aluminium crutches. These ones had adjustment holes on only one side, but if there was a second row you could just block them with tape.
I took the bung off the handle and took out the lower section of the leg. I bunged up the top of this section, used the first hole to blow across, and the next 8 for fingering. I worked out fingering for a complete octave with some lipping here and there.
When I was bored in the hospital waiting room and there seemed no staff present I played "Why Are We Waiting" to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. Staff poured out of the woodwork to listen, one bringing me a vessel to collect busking money. My nurse turned out to be Mr Galway but he did not see the irony.
Try using a clarinet mouthpiece instead of the bung.
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