 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2006-01-17 12:14
Why are there 3 rings for the fingers of the right hand? I'm sure I've only ever needed two (1st and 2nd fingers). What does the ring for the 3rd finger do? Am I missing a useful trick here?
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Author: GBK
Date: 2006-01-17 12:20
Here's one well known example of a "3rd ring" fingering:
Brahms - Op.120 No.1 mm 8/9
Eb6: TR o x x / o o x Ab/Eb
F#5: TR x x x / o o x
...GBK
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-01-17 13:01
I was taught exactly that fingering (my then teacher called it the "flute fingering") for that passage.
I was looking at a bass clarinet the other day and noticed that this fingering appears to be impossible, because the plateau for hole 6 wasn't connected to anything else. Is that true of all basses?
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2006-01-17 13:41
So... (sorry, instrument not here right now) the Ab/Eb key is to get the Eb6 in tune, and the 3rd ring is used instead of the 2nd so that you don't have to learn the Vulcan salute to use the Ab/Eb key?
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2006-01-17 13:43
Hi All,
GBK is the master for all the cool and seldom known fingerings.
Yes, that is the flute fingering for that F#. It was explained to me many years ago as the preferred one since the flute will vent better with two open holes above rather than the 123/2 fingering we use (the pinky finger also opens the tube below many notes as well - and helps with the holding of the instrument as we all know).
As a doubler on all the woodwinds, I stumble on to alternates all the time (many times by accident when using the "incorrect" fingering). In a fast passage though, IMHO facility takes precedence over a whole lot of other factors.
HRL
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-01-17 13:52
Bassie - the Ab/Eb key is indeed to get the altissimo Eb in tune.
I think the reason for closing the 6th hole rather than the 5th is not so much for ease of fingering as for intonation. You can play altissimo Eb as
TR o x x / o x o Ab/Eb
but it will tend to be flat. The fingering
TR o x x / o o x Ab/Eb
is usually better in tune. The fingering
TR o x x / x o [sliver key] o Ab/Eb
should also be in tune, but you can't use that because of the slur from C.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2006-01-17 14:09
Thanks, people. I found an earlier thread on this by searching '3rd ring' - lots of interesting thoughts. Time to go have a play later...
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-01-17 14:19
"I was looking at a bass clarinet the other day and noticed that this fingering appears to be impossible, because the plateau for hole 6 wasn't connected to anything else. Is that true of all basses?"
Yes, the tonehole for A (or E) is further down and on the side on basses (in other words - out of reach and too big in diameter for RH 3 to cover), so connecting this up to the C vent would probably make the action heavier, or compromise the venting for A, as well as the fact the RH 3rd fingerplate on pro basses is connected to the double register mechanism - having the speaker key pressed as well as RH 3 down permits only the lower speaker vent to open, and raising RH 3 off the plate will make the switch over from lower to upper vent (on the crook).
Leblanc altos and basset horns have RH 3 unlinked as well - and possibly their covered hole clarinets as well (just a guess though, I've never examined one in great detail).
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Author: GBK
Date: 2006-01-17 17:07
Another obvious, but important, use of the 3rd ring is to improve the throat Bb by use of the resonance fingering:
R + A key o o x / o o x F/C
or for a slightly lower pitch, use:
R + A key o x x / o o x F/C
...GBK
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Author: joeyscl
Date: 2006-01-17 20:25
Just the other day is saw a german clarinet...It was veeeeery different from the norm. If i remember correctly, they don't have a ring for the right index finger
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-01-17 20:38
wtfPwnage:
Some do, some don't.
No German-system clarinet has a thumb ring; that is the certain way of telling them apart from a Boehm.
All modern German-system clarinets have rings for fingers 12 56: that will have been what you saw. The more expensive models have rings for fingers 3 and 4 as well.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Iacuras
Date: 2006-01-17 20:53
Another passage that needs that fingering is Weber Concerto No. 2 Mvt. 3 (Which I happen to be listening to right now.)
Steve
"If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."
"If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly."
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2006-01-20 07:05
Hey, the 'resonance fingering' really works! Better with the C#/F# key for me, tho...
R + A key o x x / o o x F#/C#
Almost as good as the trill-key fingering.
Guess I've learnt something new - thanks, people. Wonder what the theory behind it is. If you look at the instrument you've got alternating series of open holes and closed holes all the way down... presumably, helps more of the pipe to vibrate.
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Author: buedsma
Date: 2006-01-20 11:26
also use
R + A 0 xx / x x x E for resonance
or
R + A 0 0 x / x x x E
Works in tune on selmer
Also buffet prestige , dixit my teacher
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2006-01-20 11:30
Bassie,
The theory behind it is that with varied shapes of the tube and with different parts of the harmonic spectrum, certain fingerings work better on a given partial. It's all aout the study of acoustics.
A good book on the topic is Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics (2nd ed.) by Benade. You can start on about page 430 and a little physics background is all you need to understand things. Alternate fingerings are discussed in an easy to understand manner.
Happy reading.
HRL
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