 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2006-10-30 15:05
no. LeBlanc has the only three right now and they don't intend on reproducing them. There's virtually no applicability for them.
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-10-30 15:52
For what? Most clarinetists can't afford a professional level horn at the soprano level, much less at the bass level. To spend four times that amount for a instrument that has fewer published parts than the Heckelphone seems (to me, at least) a bit on the foolish side.
Other than the A, Bb, Eb and Bb bass clarinet, demand for "clarinets" (be they bizarre contrabass ones or simply basset clarinets as are offered by all three of the major makers) is very low. Schools may buy the occasional contra instrument (along with the vast majority of alto clarinets), but few others will.
(And, mind you, I used to own a (Bundy) "contra-alto" clarinet (which should really be the true bass of the family but never mind). Sold that sucker as soon as I found a buyer, and made a nice bit of profit on the exchange, too. But, I never would have bought it in the first place had it not been a "steal" (purchased at a lot auction from a former high school put out of business by consolidation, then fixed it up on my own).
Like the bass saxophone and the baritone oboe, the contra clarinets appeal (both through expense and through need) to a very limited audience. Similar statements are seen about bass saxophones all of the time, but there's seldom much money put up to support those statements. I would imagine that this is the case in this instance as well...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-10-30 17:12
"Why? I know many clarinetist that would love one!"
Really? Do you know anybody who has ever seen or heard one?
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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: allencole
Date: 2006-10-30 17:24
I'd love one for a floor lamp! ...sorry... (just slapped myself)
Interesting bass tidbit, though. This weekend I saw one of those new, redigitalized Star Trek episodes (the one with the supersized black cat) and noticed that quite a bit of the score appeared to be a trio of two bass clarients and probably a contra-bass. (checked the credits and found that Gerald Fried was the composer)
It made for fascinating listening, but pitched definitely dropped towards 'indefinite rumble.' I used to hear a lot of this kinda stuff on "Hawaii Five-O" when I was in middle school and playing contra-alto. (Bundy also!) I can't imagine playing a reed instrument of any kind below the pitch of contra-bass.
(and what would the reeds cost?!)
Allen Cole
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2006-10-30 17:34
Hi,
The economies of scale for the very-low. low-low, and the lowest surely are evident BAssclarinet21 (aka the bottom line). I have played and performed om all the lowest saxes as well as clarinets and I am happy to have had the experience but to buy one, I don't see the allure or the sense (or should that be cents). Sorry.
HRL
PS I've even played and lived to tell about the Ab sopranino clarinet (that William Fuller used to pull out of his pocket).
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2006-10-30 18:19
BassClarinet21 wrote:
> There is no "sound clip" of a sub contra bass/alto.
> If I could hear it I would.
Just clap your hands together really fast.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-10-30 22:52
I think that even if Leblanc were willing to make more octo-contras, the price would approach $50,000, or $100,000 for the pair. That's a lot of money for something with no practical use.
Terje Lerstad, a bass and contrabass specialist, is perhaps the only person other than the Leblanc people who has played the EEb and BBBb Octobass clarinets. He has written about them and posted his playing impressions on the Contrabass list and on his own site. See:
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/octobass.html
http://kunst.no/lerstad/octos.html
http://www.contrabass.com/2000/2000-09-20.html
http://www.contrabass.com/2000/2000-09-18.html
http://www.contrabass.com/contra-archive/contra71.html
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=212146&t=212146
Terje has written that the octo-contras barely played at all in the clarion register. That makes sence, since the BBb and EEB contras can take care of anything outside the low register of the octos.
Benedikt Eppelsheim http://www.eppelsheim.com/ is the premiere maker of subcontrabass winds, including a wonderful looking contrabass clarinet. People on the Contrabass board have asked him to consider making an octo-contra, but he has said he has absolutely no interest.
At least one do-it-yourselfer has made a one-note subcontrabass clarinet by fitting together pieces of PVC plastic pipe. http://www.contrabass.com/2002/2002-06-08.html There's a picture of it somewhere, but I can't find it right now. It was wound around in the shape of a steam radiator.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-10-31 00:37
BassClarinet21 wrote:
> do they sell these?
No - you'd have to special order one if you could find someone who knew how to build one.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-10-31 00:43
BassClarinet21 wrote:
> I was talking to kenshaw.
You have to remeber that as a public bulletin board anyone may be answering your post.
If you want to request Ken clarify a comment then you you need to post as a response to Ken or mention him by name, along with quoting the post so he or anyone else can see the reference.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-10-31 01:01
BassClarinet21 wrote:
> So do they sell this contra bass clarinet?
contra-basses are sold - check http://www.wwbw.com/ for prices. They range from about $3500 to $19000.
Anything lower is special order if at all.
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Author: BassClarinet21
Date: 2006-10-31 01:33
Benedikt Eppelsheim http://www.eppelsheim.com/ is the premiere maker of subcontrabass winds, including a wonderful looking contrabass clarinet.
Do they sell these ken shaw?
Thanks for the awesome websites!!1
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-10-31 14:11
BassClarinet21 -
It's a BBb contra. See http://www.eppelsheim.com/kontrabass_klarinette.php?lang=en
The most recent postings on the Contrabass board say it's still a prototype, or has just become available. I'm pretty sure it's made only on special order, with at least a year's waiting time. The only photos I've seen are on his site and at his table at a convention, so that may be the only one in existence.
The Eppelsheim site doesn't list prices. It will probably be well over $10,000, and could easily be double that, since he can't expect to sell very many of them and he has to amortize his design and setup costs.
If you're interested in more, you should join the Contrabass list. The best way to search their archives is with Google Site operator. At the Google entry line, type:
site:contrabass.com ***
where *** is the search term. Thus a search for postings on Epplesheim would be:
site:contrabass.com epplesheim
Ken Shaw
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Author: kal
Date: 2006-10-31 23:01
There's virtually no applicability for them.
There should be. I think superlow winds would make FANTASTIC solo instruments if people would give them a chance.
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-11-01 02:42
Listen to a recording of Visions of the Beyond (Messiaen) and you'll hear the contrabass clarinet feature ... Sir Simon Rattle has recorded this work with the BPO.
Éclairs Sur l'Au-Delà
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
Post Edited (2006-11-03 00:26)
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Author: buedsma
Date: 2006-11-01 07:49
Bassclarinet21
eppelsheim : price contrabass clarinet is around 16.000 euro
Know someone who tested them.
Also : at this moment there is apparently another octo clarinet found and for sale in the US. My tech received already a lot of pictures and was hesitating to buy it just on sight.
He collects the entire history of the clarinet.
See http://www.music-company.be for his site
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-11-02 15:43
Buedsma -
The Music Company site is quite interesting, though the English rendering is a bit peculiar. There appear to be no links to his items for sale or to more photos of his collection. Perhaps he could provide some for downloading or for Mark to post here.
Please ask your friend for more information about the octo-contra clarinet. If he doesn't buy it, I'd be interested, or at least find out where it can be seen.
In Terje Lerstad's messages that I linked to above, he says that the Leblanc octo-contras all are in unplayable condition. Also, you would need to find super-large cane tubes, make the blanks and carve the profile by hand. If the original mouthpiece is lost or unplayable, that would present insurmountable problems.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-11-02 16:07
All of the "classic" references to these beasts call them "workshop curiosities". The same term is used to refer to the double-contrabass saxophone that Leblanc or Conn made one time.
It looked like a saxophone from a distance, but when you got up close you could see that it was really a advertising gimmick, not a real horn. A room filling monster it may have been, but still not a real saxophone.
(We've got one even grander down here in front of an old Billie Blues Grill restaurant building, made of various and sundry items, set up on a twenty foot high post and painted blue. From a distance it looks exactly like a classic Conn tenor saxophone, absent anything to give it scale. Get up close and you see that the bow is made from a Volkswagen body...)
While I don't doubt that the good German fellow making these has made working instruments, they're being made because he can make them, not because there is any demand for them. There's scarcely a demand for "normal" contra clarinets ("contra-alto" and contra-bass), said demand being limited to the concert band plus the occasional oddball user. Going into series production for something for which there are a) no written parts; b) no demand; and with (most importantly) c) few able to pay for same is just - well - "silly".
I know that someone will occasionally crop up who wants to play such a beast, and once in a great while that someone will have the disposable income to purchase one. After all, there are also folks who play abstract jazz on alto clarinets, so in theory anything is possible.
However, one data point does not a trend make, and even the wacky folks at Leblanc are not likely to start turning out Hovenagel-designed sub-octo-contra-contra-clarinets at all, much less in matched A/Bb pairs...
((You know, there's a whole new pointless question: they make soprano clarinets in A and Bb, and they make bass clarinets in A and Bb; why not contra-bass clarinets in A and Bb?)
A careful study of the history of the Heckelphone might shed additional light on this issue...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: EuGeneSee
Date: 2006-11-02 17:09
Whoa!! I looked over some of the pictures of sub-contras and octos with their rat's nest of stacks, rods, levers, and various, assorted, and sundry other mechanical gizmos . . . the first thought that came to mind was that the fastest way to make an enemy of a tech would be to take one of these things in to be regulated. It would probably not be a good time if any children were present. "Little pitchers have big ears." (John Prine)
Eu
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-11-02 18:21
Terry asked "why not contra-bass clarinets in A and Bb"
There is actually a respectable piece of music for contrabass in A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrabass_clarinet
Silly, silly Mr Schoenberg.
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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: buedsma
Date: 2006-11-04 17:24
ken ,
he actually has a repair shop for woodwinds , is very well known in the brussels region. Did study classical clarinet . 5 to 10 people are working for him full time : not bad for the "more closed" european market and certainly not for the small country belgium , that is also divided into a french (40%) and dutch speaking part (60%) . That also degrades business possibilities somewhat.
Octo :
=====
He also worked a few years for leblanc in the states as i recall it well.
He told me the octo story by the phone , informally. I'll check with him if i can send you any extra info on this . Don't know anything more at the moment. He is also my repairer , not a close enough friend that i can ask anything i want.
Museum :
=========
He collects the complete history of woodwinds and saxes , so hunderds of clarinets, saxes , ophoclides or what do you call them :-) are lying around or are restored.
Website:
======
I think a complete commercial website with all prices online is typical for the more open USA market. In the netherlands and france , you have a few shiops that try to sell for the lowest price, comparable to some large shops in the US. But the model doen't seem to work very well in Europe. Also , never pay before receiving an instrument : a lot of those shops advertise for example Selmer privileges at the lowest price you can find in Europe , but are not able to deliver one . And then you have to try to get your money back :-))
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Author: SFroehlich
Date: 2006-11-05 13:04
There's little point in building a sub-contrabass clarinet. The lowest note on a BBb Contra to low C is like 54 Hz. You can already start to hear the individual waves.
Any lower and it ceases to make a tone and all you have is a reed-powered drum.
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-11-05 16:02
One notes in the Wikipedia article referenced above on the contra-bass clarinet in A that the author goes on to point out that there is no such animal...
It is quite possible that the composer wrote the part based upon convention, not bothering to carefully read any of the standard orchestration references. On the other hand, none of the classic orchestration books even cover the contra-bass branch of the family.
One recent one I thumbed through in the store notes them, but categorically denied that there ever had been such a thing as a bass clarinet in A. Everybody has the right to be wrong, however...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-11-05 16:10
Terry Stibal wrote:
> One notes in the Wikipedia article referenced above on the
> contra-bass clarinet in A that the author goes on to point out
> that there is no such animal...
Not quite true - Wikipedia states there "is no evidence" not "there is no such" - a major semantic difference.
And the author of the Wikipedia article is and his/her bona fides are?
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-11-05 16:20
Baines (p131) describes Schoenberg's use of a contrabass in A as "somewhat perverse", but omits to state explicitly whether such an instrument has ever existed.
On the same page, he refers to the octo with which this thread began. Maybe a good place to end it, too.
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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: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-11-05 17:01
Well, I know what I'm going to be looking for on the auction service: a matched pair of Hovenagel designed Leblanc metal contra-basses in Bb and A in the same case. Won't I be the envy of all hereon when I get them?
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: BelgianClarinet
Date: 2006-11-05 18:00
Let's just admit, we're a bunch of fanatic lovers of the ebony beauty :-)
I would buy all kinds of clarinets (including contra and subocto-whatever) if I ever win euromillions lotery.
I'm not sure if it would sound nice, be nice, or make any sense ( 22 Hz is awfully low), but given the length of this thread it keeps more than 1 person busy.
for the (budgetary) moment, bass is low enough ;-)
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2006-11-05 19:44
Terry S -- Ooh, double case! Do you have a maker for the remote controlled scooter you will need to take that case inside for the many gigs requiring the superlow beasties?
Barb
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Author: EuGeneSee
Date: 2006-11-05 21:20
Barb, he'll just use those folks that move the concert grand in and out of the hall. Eu
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2006-11-05 23:32
EuGeneSee wrote:
> Barb, he'll just use those folks that move the concert grand in
> and out of the hall. Eu
Well, that would provide some work for a couple of stage hands, which is a good thing, but without the "cool gadget factor" of the remote control cart.
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-11-06 19:15
One notes with pleasure the various spiffs that are allowed for in the AFM contract for the carriage of things like bass clarinets, contra-clarinets, contra-basoons, baritone saxophones, extra saxophones and the like. One even gets pissed when harp players (who are also given extra pay for their instrument's carriage) try to get one to help them carry it out before allowing one to attend to one's own pile of cases...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2006-11-06 23:21
Terry Stibal wrote:
harp players (who are also given extra pay for their
> instrument's carriage) try to get one to help them carry it out
> before allowing one to attend to one's own pile of cases...
>
It is one of those mysteries of life why they don't ask the flute player or the violinist, but from my limited experience with such things I can believe they often ask the guy who needs the U-Haul out back instead ![[right]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie8.gif)
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