 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-06-05 18:10
Just performed a weird modern piece requiring a low Eb on the regular clarinet with no chance to change, I simply cut a piece of garden hose and stuck in the bell and man...perfect in tune low Eb!!!
My students were pretty surprised to see the garden stuff on stage...
No I did not do English country Garden as encore!!!
David Dow
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Author: Shawn
Date: 2003-06-05 18:31
That's great. What was the name of the piece you performed?
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Author: ron b
Date: 2003-06-05 18:37
Perfect solution, DD -- way t' go ![[hot]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/hot.gif)
(Just curious, though... what DID you do for an encore???)
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Author: contragirl
Date: 2003-06-05 18:40
That little red dot is on fire... maybe someone should help him?
--Contragirl
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2003-06-05 19:07
Interesting, D D, could it be a transposition from an A cl part?? Of course, thats what a Full Boehm horn is for, to both help with # keys and provide the A's needed low E. I've tried the bell extension to get a low D on the bass cl, plastic tube and experimentation, none too successfully!! Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-06-05 19:15
Berio Sequenza was the piece, and I just used ABS resin hose...
The piece for an encore was flight of the Bumblebee....thats as close to the Garden I got!
David Dow
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Author: javier garcia m
Date: 2003-06-05 20:55
This is a smart solution, but this device only works if you don't have to play inmediatelly the low E, or medium B, or if you have time to put/remove it before/after play these notes.
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Author: hans
Date: 2003-06-05 23:50
Sax players stick their foot in the bell to get a low A so I guess it's not surprising that your pipe extension worked, but your creativity is commendable. How long was the piece of ABS?
Cheers,
Hans
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2003-06-05 23:50
This sort of thing has been standard fare on other instruments. Rolling up a piece of paper to extend the bell is how you get the low A at the end of the Nielsen Quintet.
And it doesn't cost $1,000 either, uh, yet...
|-(8^)
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Author: Ed
Date: 2003-06-06 03:04
I have found completely by accident a great low Eb on my clarinet. I have one of those small pak-a-stand pegs stored in the bell of my Bb. I use this once in a while to hold my clarinet in safe situations. When folded up, it also sticks in the bell just a bit if I push it gently. Once as I began to play to warm up, I found my lowest note was an Eb and found the stand was still in the bell. I have used it in performances. Only takes a second to insert, is secure and in tune.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2003-06-06 06:18
With either pak-a-stand or garden hose, you can make an easy no-hands transition by attaching your favoriate pitch lowering device to a stand about waist-high, and simply put your clarinet's bell over it when the low pitch is called for. To remove the device, simply back away from it and the clarinet's bell will be cleared.
Allen Cole
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2003-06-06 11:58
Hi,
The suggestion of the low A with the foot in the bell on bari sax really takes me back; I've done this several times. I remember many years ago when my college woodwind teacher showed me his low A on bassoon by using a cardboard tube stuck in the bell. He used to play with the Cincinnatti Symphony and said that he even did that on stage.
The pack-a-stand trick looks like a really good one! Nice work Ed; these kinds of tips are what makes this BB really great. This is the true wisdom of experience!
HRL
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2003-06-06 13:28
Jeez, with all the great tips on getting the low A 'on the cheap', I'm starting to feel guilty about having the full-Boehm Kohlert Bb clarinet I recently acquired and restored.....On the other hand, nah! Like Hank, I've had to stick my foot in the bell of a low-Bb bari sax to get a low A (or, if I was standing up, turn the bell against my thigh to accomplish the same effect) and it's nice to have an actual key to do the work, especially if one's balance isn't so good.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2003-06-06 13:52
Many years ago, at the Clarinet Congress in London, John Denman played a jazz concert, where he actually lipped down the low E to Eb. I was sitting in the second row, so it wasn't an illusion. He was playing an ancient Buffet (with a wraparound register key) and a custom pear-shaped barrel, and I'm sure he was using a very open mouthpiece, but it was still astonishing. I saw him relax his embouchure completely, and he may have put his tongue on the reed, but I've never been able to push the low E down more than maybe 25 cents, and I have no idea what else he did.
The Schoenberg Theme and Variations for Band calls for a low Eb in the 2nd and 3rd parts. When I played it, we just played the octave above, since the alto and bass clarinets and bassoons had the same line.
The tube in the bell trick (usually a paper towel roller trimmed to length and painted black) is standard for bassoonists to get the final low A in the Nielsen Quintet. Since the oboe part in the Nielsen calls for English Horn, another trick is to drop the English Horn bell in the top of the bassoon. Interestingly, in the original recording with dedicatees, the Danish Quintet, the bassoonist plays the final note an octave up.
The Pak-a-Stand idea is a good one. You could use a butterfly clip or a clothes pin to attach it to the side of the stand. Another possiblity could be a trumpet mute, adjusted with extra strips of cork on the sides.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: CNB4Now
Date: 2003-06-06 13:57
Question... To get those low notes... you guys are talking about using hoses and stuff... but how do you finger the notes?
C. N. B.
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Author: William
Date: 2003-06-06 14:41
Garden hose??? Was it 5/8ths, 1/2, plastic, rubber, what color, straight or slightly curved, corrigated or ribbed, completely dry or moist from recent use??? So many questions...................this could out-do the great ligature debate.
As for fingerings, I suspect that you just finger the low E and the extention makes it Eb. But is an E still possible even with the extension firmly in place??
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-06-06 14:44
No its not possible with the extension. its about 5 inches long and 2 1/2 iches wide...I also voice it down with the knees...putting the bell in between me legs!!!
David Dow
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2003-06-06 16:14
Hi,
Dave, I forgot about the turning of the bell into the leg trick; I've done that a lot on tenor.
Ken, the painted black tube is pretty cool and as I recall, the tube did look a lot like a paper towel holder.
Folks, these are some of the best tips I've ever seen on the BB in a long time. I get so weary of should I buy this clarinet/mouthpiece/reed, go to this school/camp/university, or .... The notions on this page are really gems and extremely valuable.
Thanks for some great posts.
HRL
PS Terry Horlick's case stuff is way cool, though!
Post Edited (2003-06-07 13:53)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-06-06 22:01
You learn something new here every day. I'm still a bit confused about "ABS garden hose", however. To me, garden hose is the rubber or vinyl flexible stuff about an inch in diameter that you coil up. But what David is inferring sounds like something else.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2003-06-07 14:00
JMcAulay,
Agreed about the thread. Above are some things that perhaps the more experienced (read older and more mature :-)) folks on the BB enjoy reading. A bit kooky but really interesting but above all, very clever.
HRL
DD, DS, KS, RK, DB, and LL, great stuff!
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Author: graham
Date: 2003-06-09 11:30
An old London pro showed me the tongue on reed trick and it sounded in tune to me. I tried it later with limited success, but I am convinced that it could be mastered and applied as Denman appears to have done in Ken's example
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Author: blazian
Date: 2007-11-22 21:54
This post is really, REALLY late (about 4 years), but I was researching when I came across this thread. So:
Why hasn't an alto clarinet advocate (like me or tictactux) suggested an alto clarinet bell with a closed key? All you have to do is stick it on the end (mine fits perfectly) and keep the key down. Too bad it won't fit in a normal clarinet case.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-11-23 03:43
On the website of Steve Howard (www.shwoodwind.co.uk) there is a suggestion to use a magazine on bari sax for a low A.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-11-23 06:36
> Why hasn't an alto clarinet advocate (like me or tictactux) suggested an alto
> clarinet bell with a closed key?
Now you got me testing that over the weekend. And just imagine how it'll look! Whoa!
--
Ben
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2007-11-23 08:53
And I thought this was just an urban myth...! :-)
Personally I have indeed used the 'rolled-up page of the score' trick. You have to roll it to a short, fat tube as opposed to a long thin one. If there's an Eb in the key signature, you're not going to see many E's, so you might as well leave it there - it only affects the E and the B, and if there's an Eb in the key signature there's likely to be a Bb and hence not so many B's either.
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Author: marcgilly
Date: 2007-11-23 09:26
In response to Don Berger's comment:
"I've tried the bell extension to get a low D on the bass cl, plastic tube and experimentation, none too successfully!! Don"
I've found that the cardboard tube from a kitchen paper towel roll works perfectly on most basses. My current instrument (an intermediate buffet) has a vent hole in the bell, so I just cover that with my foot to get a D.
Sadly, putting a cardboard tube from some Christmas wrapping paper doesn't make it go any lower! :(
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Author: nahoj
Date: 2007-11-23 16:13
I once lowered the low C to B on my contra-alto with a piece of water drain tube between the body and the bell to help play a contrabassoon part correctly. Worked good! :-)
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2007-11-24 04:33
The third movement of Brahms' fourth symphony is written for C clarinet. Measures 295 and 297 in the second clarinet part both have a low Eb. Rather than play the movement on Bb or switch to Bb for the section that includes those measures (likely the professional solutions), I made an extension from the heavy cardboard cone-shaped spindle from a roll of string (coloring the part that stuck out of my bell black with a magic marker). It fit in my bell like a trumpet mute and worked perfectly though I did have to remove it fairly quickly to play a clarion B a few measures later.
Best regards,
jnk
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