 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Alastair Hanson
Date: 2004-04-15 20:59
Dear All,
We have recently been commissioned to make a full left handed clarinet. The player has a medical reason why he can no longer play a regular instrument. The clarinet we are making will be an exact mirror of a regular Boehm keyed instrument.
My question is; does anyone know if this has been done before? (I mean genuinely, not just in a photo editing package!).
I'm sure that it must have been, but this is a subject of much deliberation in our workshop and after lots of searching on the net we can't find anything to settle the matter.
Sincere thanks to anyone with some accurate information.
Alastair Hanson
Hanson Clarinet Company
England
www.hansonclarinets.com
Post Edited (2004-04-15 21:03)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Alseg
Date: 2004-04-15 21:06
Post Edited (2004-04-15 21:09)
Ok...I was adding the < > to make the link work....and it did
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
Post Edited (2004-04-15 21:10)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Alastair Hanson
Date: 2004-04-15 21:10
Thanks for the reply.
We had found this picture but the debate still goes on; The clarinet shown is an albert system and the key set is only adapted, (note the register key and upper rings), not fully inversed.
I'm trying to see if we can find a fully reversed Boehm instrument anywhere from the past...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Alseg
Date: 2004-04-15 21:15
My high school orch. director in Philadelphia had major modifications made for similar reason....his median nerve was severed when he allegedly crashed through a plate glass window while shooting hoops. The person who did the work is, unfortunately, deceased....it was Moennig.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Alastair Hanson
Date: 2004-04-15 21:18
I have made amental note to take extreme care whenever shooting hoops...
If you have or know anyone who has a photo of this or similar beast or any more details that would be great.
Thanks again!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-04-15 22:18
Anything is possible. Charlie Ponte had a mirror image left-handed Boehm flute hanging from a wall in his store in New York for many years. I've personally seen and held it.
The only left-handed clarinet that I've heard of is the one Abe Galper has. I'm not sure why the player would want this, since both hands are necessary to play the clarinet.
If the player has lost part of the fingers on one hand, there are plateau key systems available from Leblanc for both student and professional models. If the player has lost his right thumb, the Fhred instrument stand is available from http://www.quodlibet.com/FhredGen.htm. Either of these would be easier and cheaper than making mirror-image keys from scratch.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: diz
Date: 2004-04-15 22:18
I'm still trying to get my head around how moving your left hand down, helps with a medical condition? You're still holding the instrument and moving your fingers to close tone holes? I've obviously missed some important "thing" here ...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: jbutler ★2017
Date: 2004-04-15 22:35
You may go to my website at look the pictures on this page.
http://www.cork-and-pad.woodwind.org/Business/whatsnewbusiness.htm
Scroll down an take a look at pictures of an Albert system clarinet in C that is "left" handed in that the right hand is on the upper joint. This is not "smoke and mirrors". I overhauled this clarinet for a customer.
jbutler
Post Edited (2004-04-15 22:41)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Kalakos
Date: 2004-04-15 23:31
Hello: On the "left-handed clarinets" topic. Years ago, my great uncle taught me to play the Greek shepherd's flute. He played right hand up (ie backwards from a clarinet). He told me that when he used to play klarino (simple system Greek style clarinet), he hd and played a left handed one. He recommended I find one too. I looked and looked, because when I started some day, I wanted to play the same way we did the flute. When I was living in Greece several years later (1970), I found one. Just like the regular "Albert" but with the right hand up and the other one down. It was not in very good condition and I was on limited funds, so I didn't buy it. (wish I had)
They do exist, as some of the other list mates have said. They were exactly like the standard instrument but all in reverse. How many were made or what percentage, I have no idea. By the way, I still play the shepherd's flute, the zourna, and the gaida (Greek bagpipe) with the right hand up, but the simple systen (Albert) clarinet the "regular" way with the right hand down.
Best regards,
John Pappas
Kalakos
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-04-16 08:42
The Adler does not appear to be based on a true "Albert," but rather a more complex German system Clarinet. It appears to me that the keywork is completely reversed, *not* with regard to the stick on the left in the picture, but with regard to a modern German Clarinet of comparable design (more than the simplest 17/4).
Of course, this is a "So what" comment, as the intent is to locate a reversed Boehm.
Regards,
John
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Dan1937
Date: 2004-04-16 11:59
About 40 years ago, Rosario Mazzeo told the following story (not sure about all the details, but the substance is accurate):
While walking down a street in Pittsburgh, he looked in the front window of Volkwein's, where a strange clarinet caught his eye. He realized it was built as a mirror image of a standard Boehm clarinet. Because he collected clarinets, he went inside and asked if he could buy it. The clerk asked him if he wanted to try SEVERAL and pick out the best one! As it turned out, they had been made in an isolated village in Europe (where they didn't have access to conventional clarinets), and all of their clarinetists played the "reversed" model!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-04-16 13:56
Dear Alastair,
I was thinking about your clarinet on my (usual long) commute home from work last night, and had a few ideas for your consideration:
Start with a closed-hole (plateau) clarinet...
On the top joint: Add linkages from the top stack (the flat plates which each operate the actual pad cups directly below on the lower stack), to also operate a corresponding pad on the lower joint, but....
Have an additional key (maybe operated by the crook between the left thumb and index finger) to disable the simultaneous operation of the lower joint keys, unless this key is depressed.....in which case it also holds all the upper joint pads closed, via the upper joint lower stack rod.
This may not make much sense in print --- a picture would be better, perhaps I could sketch it up....
Just an idea.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bellflare
Date: 2004-04-16 14:27
Maybe if we knew the medical condition or deformity that necessitates this construction we could think of something simpler.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: DougR
Date: 2004-04-17 17:48
Hey Alastair--
I'd do 2 things right off the bat:
1) contact the Shrine to Music Museum & see if they might have a left-handed clarinet in their collection (the curator is really helpful and responsive, if I remember correctly), explain your mission, and ask her "Got any idea where else I could try?"
link: http://www.usd.edu/smm/
2) put a small classified ad in the ICA publication The Clarinet asking the same thing you asked in your initial query, and see if you hear back (this'll be a longer-term venture, since the magazine is published only quarterly)
Then (in no particular order) I'd call Wichita Band Instruments, Fred Weiner, Muncy, and anyone else you can think of who traffics high-volume in used clarinets, & ask them your original query plus "Got any idea where else I could try?"
And, wasn't there a big collection of clarinets displayed at the Metropolitan Museum within the last five years? Does anyone remember its origin? THAT would be a place I'd try as well.
Sorry not to be able to be more specific; this is the kind of query, though, that requires speculation, invention, and improvisation! Good luck!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Don Berger
Date: 2004-04-17 18:25
V G advice, Doug R, fine sources of cl info. I'd be surprised if Al Rice has not seen this thread, I tried looking in his newest book [Cl in Classical Period] and in several others, will look in Sachs and Baines, L-H history may have been in other insts. Groves dict has a pic of a reed-on-top player [I recall] and other history by Shackelford [I believe]. You are prob. not far fron the Bate Museum in Oxford, extensive collection and rarities[?]. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Sue G
Date: 2004-04-18 19:44
I wish I'd had a left handed clarinet when I first started to learn to play - not because I'm left handed (which incidentally I am !) but becasue I too have a medical problem, in that I've no feeling in my left thumb and index finger following a medical accident a few years ago- well before I decided to take up the clarinet.
I've overcome the problem to a large extent now - I now "know" where the register key is even though I can't feel it !
A left handed model which enabled me to use my right thumb for the register key would have been a dream !
Still they say a little struggle is good for the soul - not sure it's so good for my playing though !!
Sue
:)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
