The Clarinet BBoard

Interesting study in intonation

Author: Camanda  Date:   2004-11-02 00:54 I found out last week in Advanced Band that my throat A is painfully sharp -- almost a quarter tone. Unfortunately, I learned this in a unison passage that's just me and my stand partner, whose A is in tune, of course. No amount of added fingers can help my situation, so I turned to the Internet to find a possible solution to my problem so I don't have to tacet all of my throat A's. I know quite well that the clarinet is an adventure in intonation. I was prepared for crazy ideas. I found this interesting article in a Google search and I was intrigued by the idea of charting the intonation of one's clarinet. So I did just that. I only got to do the first two registers, but I don't think I want to do the altissimo after seeing these results! These results came out when I tuned to concert A and left it slightly sharp, as suggested in the article. Note: "Pitched correctly" means either the tuner showed no red arrows in either direction, or showed one but also showed the green light. Flat notes: 1 (the fingering for third-line B-natural with the A key and the top right-hand side key; it's a quarter-tone flat, and I never use it. I was just curious.) Notes pitched correctly: 5 (bottom E; bottom F#; middle-line B; third-space C; B above the staff) Notes up to 10 cents sharp: 7 (bottom F; low D#; first-line E; third-space C#; fourth-line D; fourth-line D#; A# above the staff) Notes between 11 and 20 cents sharp: 9 (low G through middle C; fourth-space E; fifth-line F and F#) Notes between 20 and 25 cents sharp: 12 (middle C#; low D; first-space F through second-space A#; G, G#, and A on top of the staff; C above the staff) Think it's about time I had a tune-up. The equipment, for what it's worth, is a Selmer Signet 100, grenadilla, with a Vandoren 5RV mouthpiece, Rovner Dark ligature, and Mitchell Lurie 3.5 reeds. (Oh, and I fixed my A problem. I got out of the habit of tuning third-space C at the barrel. I tune open G at the barrel and then third-space C between the upper and lower joints. No more [major] throat tone issues.) Amanda Cournoyer URI Clarinet Ensemble, Bass Clarinet

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