Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2004-06-04 14:17
They don't exist is probably accurate, but there have been attempts at the same thing on other instruments.
The Selmer soprano of about twenty years ago had an additional vent up on the barrel for capturing the altissimo range more accurately. I've never seen a fingering chart for same, but I believe that the "action" was automatic and was driven by the "half hole" rolling of the first finger left hand.
In effect, the half hole (or first finger vent opening on the harmony instruments) is another "register key", albeit one without any real mechanism.
I've spent time on manual register key bass clarinets, "LeBlanc" system bass clarinets (with the Ridenour "system" plus the horrid forked Eb on the lower joint) and double register vent bass clarinets (with a hole on the neck and one on the body, all linked to the lower joint by a long tracking rod). I think that the "LeBlanc" system was primarily intended to replace the "less robust" double register vent system, the better to avoid the maintenance problems associated with that long and exposed rod on the back of the instrument.
If I had my druthers, I'd opt for a double register key system. It wasn't that hard to operate (in my opinion, of course), and there were never any adjustment problems (no long rod to bash, no bridge key to get bent, and no rocker to keep in adjustment). It also allowed some clever fingerings in the altissimo register that aren't there on the modern horns.
But, the automatic system is here to stay, so my vote now goes to the "non-LeBlanc" system. The lack of a linkage means that you have a basic Bb hole (for the throat Bb), and an "averaged" vent for everything else...not a good compromise.
The down side of the "non-Leblanc" system is that you have to watch adjustment like a hawk. Neck at exactly the right angle on the body, "rocker" mechanism has to be clean and free to operate, no bending in the bridge for the lower joint rod. Anything gets just a hair off and you start to experience what I call "fluting", where the register hole on the body starts to sound an additional partial in addition to what comes out of the proper tone hole. With adults, this can be monitored and corrected...not so with the typical music student using a shared horn.
(Another factor to consider here is how the horn is carried and stored. My Selmer Model 33 is handled very carefully,. but it unfortunately lives in a very old case, one so old that I cannot buy a new one from the manufacturer. (The ones that they send are for the newer horn, which has changed body dimensions.) I found about ten years ago that I was having troubles with keeping the register keys functioning correctly, and the cause was traced to the way that the old and broken down case was allowing the upper joint to be "thrown" around in its seat, thereby bending the bridge key slightly. A little extra padding and all was well, but it's not the sort of thing that leaps out and tells you what is happening. One of these days I'm going to spring for a new custom case, but for now the old one has to serve.)
Saxophones have a similar multiple vent arrangement, and one version of same (on the Yamaha horn) has three or four "vents" that are opened in a very clever progression. One of the "vents" (on the baritone) actually has two vent holes about an inch apart, the first of which opens when a finger on the right hand "holes" is lifted. That key has a very small flat spring that causes the second vent hole to open a fraction of a second (less than a tenth by stopwatch) later, thereby "progressively" opening the total vent area for that section of the upper register. Very interesting to watch it function (it's right under your nose on the baritone and hard to miss), and (judging from one time when it was "adjusted" incorrectly by a less skilled repair dude) VERY critical to rapid sounding of that area of the horn when jumping up from the lower octave.
And then there's oboes with their TRIPLE register key arrangements...or we could discuss making the register shifts on a bassoon...
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The Clarinet BBoard
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