 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: RewBicks
Date: 2011-08-13 23:24
Hi everyone, this is my first post on the site, but I've been lurking for some time and have found this place to be of great help on a number of occasions. I'm currently in the process of getting back into playing the clarinet seriously after a 7 year hiatus. I'm intending to audition for a local orchestra in about a year's time, once I've got all the rust out. It's been wonderful to get back at it after such a long time off.
I have one question relating to the tuning of my Series 9 (m13 lyre mp). I've measured several times now, and in each case, with the barrel all the way in, I'm sharp on every note but low e and f, which are flat by around 3-5 cents. I'm sharpest at low a/b and middle e/f which are around 13-15 cents sharp each, but I'm about 10 cents sharp all the way through the throat tones as well. When I pull out the barrel 1mm and the upper joint .5 mm, my tuning improves quite dramatically and (as would be expected, I believe), my low tones do not go all that much flatter, so I've been finding it relatively satisfactory. However, I'm wondering if it might be worthwhile to invest in a 67 mm Ridenour barrel over the 66.5 mm stock barrel. Obviously this will lengthen the instrument (which I'm already doing), but I am curious about whether the dynamics of the new barrel would affect tuning tendencies as it is, possibly meaning that the longer barrel will turn out to be TOO long...
Anyways, if anyone has any thoughts, they would be greatly appreciated. Though they are much less expensive than their competitors, 70 dollars is not chump change, and I'd rather not spend it and turn out to have an unusable piece at the end of the day.
Post Edited (2011-08-13 23:27)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2011-08-14 00:05
Are you using a non-13 Series M13 Lyre? They will play sharper than a 13 Series, so try one of them out to see if this brings the overall pitch down.
Low E and F are usually slightly flat on Selmers (and also other clarinets) which is just part of the nature of the beast - making them sharper with a shorter bell or larger low F tonehole will cause problems for B and C which will then become too sharp.
Must admit I use a 67mm barrel the majority of the time and a 68mm if things are a bit on the warm side, but that's with a Vandoren A1 - I have got a 13 Series M15 but found it hard work playing up to pitch on, so I shortened the tenon by just over 1mm (rather than shortening the barrel) and that sorted things out.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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