 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ginny
Date: 1999-02-16 19:05
Why are C clarinets so rare? I had heard that the accoustics were not good for C clarinet. So all you engineers, why?
Ginny, who hates transposing.
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 1999-02-16 19:15
I don't know why myself, but I strongly doubt it has anything to do with acoustics, etc. If they can make B-flat, A, E-flat, B-flat bass, and other clarinets that sound great, there should be no reason a C clarinet couldn't be made to sound as good.
--One of the engineers
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Author: Glenn
Date: 1999-02-16 19:32
I own a R-13 Buffet C clarinet, and use a Morgan c clarinet
mouthpiece. I've played it professionally in various orchestras for the past 15 years or so. The tone is virtually
indistinguishable from the R-13 Bb. It is very handy for opera work and pieces where transposition is cumbersome.
I've yet to find a conductor who can hear the difference.
As long as you have the proper mouthpiece, and play with the required support/embouchure/ etc.. there should be no problem... Good Luck!!
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Author: Andy
Date: 1999-02-16 22:04
Hmm.... Good question, I think that the C clarinet sometimes plays better than a Bb. It's Really better in the high octive (aka 'squeak mode'). I think the reason that most bands/orchristras don't have them is because they weren't traditionaly in any of them. Also they don't write music for C clarinets as much as they do for the Bb. And as Glenn i think.... I have actully... a Bb, A, Eb, and C clarinets and the C has one of the best tones out of all of them, but since the C is a R-13 that could have some affect on it.
-Andy
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 1999-02-16 22:38
Glenn wrote:
Glenn ()
Date: 02-16-99 15:32
I own a R-13 Buffet C clarinet.... The tone is virtually
indistinguishable from the R-13 Bb. It is very handy for opera work and pieces where transposition is cumbersome.
I've yet to find a conductor who can hear the difference.
Glenn -
I really disagree. I have a pre-R-13 Buffet in C -- a fine instrument, but *very* different from my R-13 Bb. The sound is much brighter. For me, there is far more difference between the C and the Bb than between the Bb and the A. I can certainly play my C to sound like my Bb, but its natural sound is brighter -- enough so that it doesn't blend very well with the other woodwinds, as a Bb does.
Many composers (Mahler, Richard Strauss and Stravinsky in particular) wrote for the C clarinet as a distinct voice. I think the differences in size are more pronounced with the smaller instruments. The difference between an alto clarinet in Eb and a basset horn in F is small. On the other hand, Till Eulenspiegel was written for the D clarinet, not the Eb, and it sounds entirely different on the D.
Furthermore, the scale of the clarinet is uneven enough that any experienced listener can tell which notes on the instrument are being played. Even where the transposition is not difficult, the distinctive sounds of certain fingerings can completely change the character of the music. For example, early in the last movement of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, there is a little solo for 1st clarinet in C anticipating the big Eb clarinet solo. It's almost always transposed on Bb, but if you play it on the C, you use the same fingerings as the Eb, and the character of the two solos matches much better. At least in the Chicago Symphony, they always use the instrument in the key called for (and sometimes even an instrument with a different [e.g., German] fingering system).
I love my C clarinet and wouldn't be without it, especially when I play oboe or violin music, but I won't give up my Bb either. And sometimes there's not enough time to switch, or I don't feel like schlepping another instrument, or I transpose just to keep that skill in shape.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Daniel
Date: 1999-02-16 23:22
Ken Shaw wrote:
-------------------------------
Glenn wrote:
Glenn ()
Date: 02-16-99 15:32
For example, early in the last movement of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, there is a little solo for 1st clarinet in C anticipating the big Eb clarinet solo.
Actually, the 1st clarinet is on the Eb and the 2nd clarinet is in C. :-)
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Author: Tim2
Date: 1999-02-17 03:41
I do not own a C clarinet. I have only my R13 Buffet. I do know that an Eb clarinet sounds much "brighter" than a Bb. I would have to imagine then that as the clarinet would decrease in size to the size of an Eb, the sound would get "brighter" along the way, not in sudden jolts. I would assume that the C clarinet would have a relatively "brighter" timbre than a Bb. A D clarinet would be brighter than a C clarinet and so on. The variations in wood and bore and mouthpiece... all make for the sound so maybe it is possible for a C clarinet to have a sound similar to a Bb. It is all relative. What your ears hear. My hearing omits some higher frequencies so that makes a difference in what I hear in sound for me.
I am not an engineer but there are too many variables to say what the sound is always going to be like. Give the person applause for having the right combination of everything to get a "DARK" (yes, I am going to use that word) sound on a C clarinet.
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Author: Arnold the basset hornist
Date: 1999-02-17 14:30
If all proportions of a clarinet are scaled in the correct dimension together, it would sound equal. For organ pipes the neutral factor for the diameter is 1.68 (4th root of 8) per octave (double length).
In Germany there are special reed sizes for the C clarinet offered, while Bb and A clarinet are even usually played with the same mouthpiece (when possible with the same barrel, too). Some instumentmakers make different borings in their barrels for their Bb and A clarinet, others use the same boring. If you can change both mouthpiece and barrel form one instrument to the other you have less parts to warm up again.
The preferable usage of Bb and A instrument is historically grown. Johann Georg Heinrich Backofen still listed (in 1803 I think) C, Bb and A clarinet to be the usual ones - every instument covering up to two or three flats resp. sharps in tonality.
With the modern key systems developing during the 19th century it was (and is) quite comfortable to play from 4# (E major) to 4b (Ab major), thus you need only two clarinets to cover all tonalities (and perhaps only one mouthpiece and barrel and one reed to play).
By the way, Ginny, do you know what 'transposing with a ruler' is?
- Draw one more line below the staff, delete the upper line (tip ex fluid or white ink), draw the corrected alternations above the notes - and play it with an A clarinet. That's a good solution if you play together with #-loving instuments such as violins or guitars.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 1999-02-17 16:19
Arnold the basset hornist wrote:
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If all proportions of a clarinet are scaled in the correct dimension together, it would sound equal.
--
Arnold, that isn't quite true. The cutoff frequency (in general, the higher the cutoff frequency, the "brighter" the sound) is determined by many things on a clarinet - the resonant frequency of the tube above and below the closed holes of the clarinet being two of them. The length below the closed holes (the bottom of the clarinet) acts as a very lossy resonant system. Longer clarinets generally have a lower cutoff, with a different timbre as a result. If your theoretical supposition was true, a concert c''' on an Eb would sound the same as a concert c''' on a Bb clarinet. They don't!
Also, the raio of bore to length affects tuning and timbre. The exact same ratio being used on all the different sizes would probably not be as pleasant sounding as you would imagine (and, in fact, this ratio determines some of the "characteristic" sounds of the different manufacturers).
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 1999-02-17 21:09
Having at least one of the cl family Eb, C, Bb, A, Eb, Bb , but not F and D , dern it, I certainly have found a gradation of brilliance to darkness. My best single comparison was in playing Mendelssohn's Eligah [C Bb A]. Thanks Ken re: Strauss [great composer], Till's hanging scream for D, always thot it was Eb! Thanx, Mark C, we're never too old to learn from each other!. Don
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Author: Gary Van Cott
Date: 1999-02-17 22:41
I was curious about the original post. The current Buffet C instrument is an RC. Was there ever an R-13 C?
Currently R-13s are only made in Bb, A, and Eb.
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Author: Arnold the basset hornist
Date: 1999-02-18 05:53
My post was based on Otto Kronthaler, who compared a basset horn in F with a ('self made') basset horn in G (for Stamitz's basset horn concerto) and found no difference 'when all meassures are scaled in the correct ratio' - which does not mean that all length dimensions (e.g. tube length and boring diameter) have to be scaled with the same factor.
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Author: Plácido
Date: 1999-02-21 16:17
Good question... If I want to be nasty, I say comps wrote stuff on C clarinet, because they want to make our lives better nicer and easier.
Maybe this whole thing goes back to the good old times, when the comp wrote the piece, the clarinet guy went home and fixed his clarinet to it. Or made an extra one, like one of the trumpet professors of the Univ. of Western Ontario: he played something in Germany, and he just could not tune to the organ because it was so sharp. So he went back to the hotel and cut three inches off the trumpet. He put it back for the next recital.
So maybe during the old times people weren't so anal about fixing or making and instrument...
Plácido
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