 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: C2thew
Date: 2006-10-26 02:46
Over time, there have been many numerous attempts to improve upon the creation of the clarinet, and in addition there have also been many works designed especially for these clarinets. However, these days, many of these instruments do not see as much action these days and are seemingly forgotten. Do people still play with the C clarinets and what not? I have no musical background/history on past instruments, but i am interested to know if these instruments are still being played. It seems that the Bb, A, and bass clarinet have largely become the standard norm in concert band, well from my limited experience. So my question is 1) can you add anything to this list? and 2) do you play anything other than the standard norm of the Bb, A, or bass clarinet?
There's the....
Ab clarinet
Bb Clarinet
B? clarinet
C clarinet
D clarinet?
Eb clarinet
F clarinet? i guess one has been made?
Bass clarinet
Alto Clarinet
Contra bass clarinet
adding to the list....
Turkish clarinet in G
basset clarinet
basset horn
contra alto clarinet
sub contra alto
sub contra bass
basset horn
two contrabasses, the Eb and the BBb.
G Sopranino
Bass Clarinet in A (the one I saw was shaped like a bassoon)
Quarter Tone Bb Clarinet
Quarter Tone Bb Double Clarinet
then theres variations of....
bohem
full bohem
articulated G#
Oehler
Stubbins
Mazzeo
Romero system,
Pupeschi system,
Clinton-Boehm
albert
galpan
McIntyre
Brymer
Then you have your pre...... 1900 clarinets, and those get sketchy. can someone fill the gap on those?
Help me out people! list all the clarinet types that you can think of, and all the variations that people have done to try to modify the clarinet.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
Post Edited (2006-10-27 05:36)
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Author: susieray
Date: 2006-10-26 03:52
How about
Turkish clarinet in G
basset clarinet
basset horn
contra alto clarinet
sub contra alto
sub contra bass
Post Edited (2006-10-26 03:56)
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Author: Cuisleannach
Date: 2006-10-26 03:56
C parts were written quite often (Beethoven 9 and Smetana Ma Vlast are notable examples) but many of us learned to transpose these using a Bb instrument. They fell out of fashion for a while but came back with the big band craze because you could use them without transposing, and they've become quite popular these days. The folks who use C instruments (and I don't) claim, with merit, that the instruments do sound differently and their use is justified when scored for. Triple cases (A/Bb/C) are fairly easy to come by, as a result.
Likewise, you'll find a part for sopranino in D in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring that most of us transpose to Eb.
There is the basset horn, which is similar to the alto but pitched in F (I think)
There is also the basset clarinet, which is (typically) an A clarinet that extends to a low C, often used for the Mozart (Stadler's instrument went down that low).
There are two contrabasses, the Eb and the BBb.
-Randy
I've seen pictures of something purported to be a Bb piccolo clarinet, but I've never actually seen or heard one (thank God!)
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2006-10-26 04:02
I saw in a museum once:
G Sopranino
Bass Clarinet in A (the one I saw was shaped like a bassoon)
Quarter Tone Bb Clarinet
Quarter Tone Bb Double Clarinet
Some of those may have been one of a kind.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: William
Date: 2006-10-26 14:33
I thought there were only two kinds of clarinet--those that played well....and (most of) those that didn't.
Post Edited (2006-10-26 14:35)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-10-26 15:03
Then there's the Selmer Marchi system - a full Boehm system with an extra speaker vent on the barrel (and a lot of extra mechanism to boot!).
This extra speaker vent made it possible to play the altissimo (from E upwards) by using the fingerings for the bottom register - so it put the lowest notes up by three octaves.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-10-26 15:23
Not forgetting all the other non-Boehm systems!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: larryb
Date: 2006-10-26 17:38
Basset Horns can be broken down into:
basset horn in F
basset horn in G
There's also an Alto Clarinet in F (in addition to the one in Eb).
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-10-26 17:50
Yes, so it clearly seperates and defines the EEb contra-alto from the BBb contrabass.
Leblanc have built F alto clarinets as well - or are these basset horns to low Eb? What defines a basset horn - the key it's pitched in (usually F) or the low C extension?
I reckon it's the low C extension as basset clarinets are defined by this factor to seperate them from a standard A clarinet.
The bore size of basset horns is something of a debate, some believe narrow bore basset horns with a Bb mouthpiece are the true ones and see large bore (ie. Leblanc) basset horns as 'alto clarinets in F to low C' - but if it's pitched in F and decends to low C I think that's the defining factor, regardless of bore or mouthpiece type.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2006-10-26 18:41
To [try to] fill out the Boehm "variants" in C2thew's orig. post, please include my McIntyre and I recall other [earlier] multi-keyed cls, look in Brymer etc for more "failed attempts". Re: the 4 extra keys/ring distinguishing the 17/6 from the 20/7, I have cls with 1 [ring], 2 [ring and artic C#/G#], 3 [ring, C#/G# and alt Ab/Eb lever], and a Full Boehm [+ low Eb/Bb?]. There is also a multitude of German/Austrian? cls, with which I'm not familiar. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-10-26 18:48
Romero system, Pupeschi system, Clinton-Boehm....
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2006-10-26 19:24
Avrahm Galper owns (owned) a true left handed clarinet.
It's the only photo of a real one (he had a regular clarinet next to it for comparison) I've ever seen.
Unlike the "left handed clarinet" that Steve Allen played in the "Benny Goodman Story."
...GBK
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Author: Merlin
Date: 2006-10-26 19:50
Quote:
Avrahm Galper owns (owned) a true left handed clarinet.
It's the only photo of a real one (he had a regular clarinet next to it for comparison) I've ever seen.
I've seen two in my hands - Galper's and a customer instrument that came in last year.
Galper's was not only left handed, but an Albert system instrument in C.
Steve Fox had it at the time, held it up with no keywork on, and asked me what was weird about it. Got Albert and "C"...took a bit longer to get the Left handedness.
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-10-27 02:41
Part of the problem our originator has here is with the improper terminology first applied to the instrument back in the 1800's. Unlike other instrumental families, where an alto is an alto and so forth, the clarinet family started out with the tenor of the family called the "bass".
When you set the bar like that, and are generally sloppy about terminology overall, it's the beginning of stuff like "Eb contrabass" (it isn't; it's the true bass of the family) and "octobass" and so forth. That moves the Bb "large instrument" into the "contrabass" slot, and avoids all of the muddle.
Just why Sax, the inventor of the modern "bass clarinet" allowed this to happen is beyond me - he was pretty careful with his other instrument families to "get it right", give or take the stray flugelhorn here and there.. But, happen it did, and there are whole generations of thinking musicians who wonder, in the back of their minds, just what happened to the tenor clarinet...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: larryb
Date: 2006-10-27 05:20
I always thought of the basset horn as the tenor clarinet.
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Author: BelgianClarinet
Date: 2006-10-27 05:37
What actually defines 'a bass' etc .
The logic, if any, that I use is the lowest 'octave" the instrument plays.
As far as I remember the Bass-clarinet in C extends down to C (sounding BBb), so apart from 1 note this is the Bass-register ?
octaaf 0: subcontra-octaaf ( = 27,5 Hz, ook A2) (octocontrabass)
octaaf 1: contra-octaaf (A1 = A = 55 Hz, ook A1) (contrabass)
octaaf 2: 'big' or bass-octaaf (A2 = A = 110 Hz)
octaaf 3: 'small'-octaaf (A3 = a = 220 Hz) (soprano)
octaaf 4: eengestreept octaaf (A4 = a' = 440 Hz)
octaaf 5: tweegestreept octaaf (A5 = a" = 880 Hz)
octaaf 6: driegestreept octaaf (A6 = a'" = 1760 Hz)
octaaf 7: viergestreept octaaf (A7 = a"" = 3520 Hz)
octaaf 8: vijfgestreept octaaf (A8 = a'"" = 7040 Hz)
octaaf 9: zesgestreept octaaf, (C9 = c""",...)
Ofcourse the problem with the clarinet is that is has such a wide extention downwards. Down to E under the 'normal' C. or even a full octave on a basset-clarinet. On top of that the 'low' notes are just as easy to play as the standard range (not evident on other instruments), so a Bass can actually be used in the bass-octave.
But afterall this namings confusion is just part of the fun. Pointing out the fact the Mozart wrote his concerto for bassetclarinet and not a bassethorn is keeping me amused for years already.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-10-29 22:10
Yep, you have Adler, Buffet, Couesnon ... Xinghai, Yamaha and I don't know any makes starting with Z (pronounced 'Zed' here) at the mo.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: 2E
Date: 2006-10-30 03:43
Jay Easton runs a "modern and unusual" instruments site, he plays contrabass saxophone and various other rare woodwind instruments. heres the "complete clarinet family album" as proposed by Leblanc.
http://www.jayeaston.com/galleries/clarinet_family/clarinet_p_Leblanc_clarinet_family.html
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Author: BelgianClarinet
Date: 2006-10-30 17:15
Also take a look at this
http://www.selmer.fr/html/french/claribas/claribas.htm
at least this shows the ones you can still actually buy today.
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