 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: dvon
Date: 2002-01-08 07:55
Hi all,
I am currently playing in my school's concert band. I was recently given the chance to play on the alto clarinet even though i have been playing on the Bb for about a year. It would only be for some pieces while i would have to play the Bb for other pieces. I was wondering if it would be wise to play the alto as it may affect my embochure on the Bb. Could you please give me some advice??
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2002-01-08 14:24
Don't worry about it, the embouchure for alto clarinet is not much different. In fact, playing a variety of sizes of clarinet will ultimately help your embouchure. Go for it, and have fun!
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2002-01-08 15:53
Well said, Dave, my experience also. Joining into a church college band for a concert, I picked up my alto, since the bass cl part was well played, and in a few minutes had regained embouchure "comfort" as before. Memory still ok, I guess. Don
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2002-01-08 18:36
I've also played both alto and bass clarinets (along with Eb soprano, C soprano and A soprano), and agree that the larger instruments only enhance my abilities on the Bb. It always seems so much easier to play after I've played an alto or bass for a while.
I found that it enhances my lung capacity and fingering skills. It's kind of like using weights around your ankles as a runner. When you take them off your feet seem almost "weightless" and running is much more effortless. Also, baseball players sometimes swing practice swings with a weight around the bat to enhance their real swing. Similar deal here.
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2002-01-08 19:27
To add to what Don and Brenda have said, you can gain even more embouchure control and flexibility later on by adding instruments outside the clarinet family to your repertoire, e.g. the saxes, even oboe or bassoon. Having doubled on all the single-reed instruments for years, I can now switch effortlessly from any of the clarinets to any of the saxes or between any of the sizes within these two families, and I believe my soprano clarinet embouchure is better for having had to adapt frequently to a variety of other reed instruments. But for starters, alto clarinet is probably a great 'first double', as it as about as similar to soprano clarinet as you can get, while having certain elements of bass clarinet technique associated with it also.
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Author: sarah
Date: 2002-01-08 20:28
Practice switching between the two quickly once you get used to the embouchure. Know exactly how each one feels and be able to replicate that feeling fast.
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2002-01-09 16:16
Also, be sure you get a good mouthpiece, reed, ligature combo going on your alto or bass clarinet. That will affect your ability to do well with your articulation and tone and will contribute toward a productive time on your new instrument. They don't come with good mouthpieces (just like Bbs), so you'll have to get one off eBay or from one of the Sneezy classifieds or somewhere like that. I highly recommend that you do that asap when you switch.
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Author: diz
Date: 2002-01-09 22:16
I used to happily swap between B flat soprano and B flat bass. Our school band didn't own an alto unfortunately, but it did own a soprano E flat - it was my favourite 'cause it always seemed to get a cheeky "piccoloesque" style part.
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2002-01-10 14:15
My senior year in high school, we went through some rather traumatic changes (including forced busing for racial desegragation purposes), leading to the loss of many of our best players to other schools and the resignation of our wonderful band director --- his replacement was thoroughly incompetent and this, combined with the loss of so many good players, turned us from one of the best bands in the start to one of the worst, overnight. And I was band president (woo hoo) and was bored out of my mind, so instead of playing bass clarinet in the band as I had been doing the previous two years, I decided to alternate between the little Eb soprano clarinet and the EEb contra-alto. Our 'eefer' was a Bundy with a rather bad stock mouthpiece, and it played so flat in the upper register that I literally cut the inside of my lower lip with my teeth every time I played it! So I developed the routine of playing Eb soprano one day, then switching to EEb contra for the next day or two before returning to the 'eefer'. This was, of course, a rather more extreme switch than from Bb soprano to Eb alto, but in the long run I think it helped my embouchure (and finger) techniques.
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