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Re: Bass Clarinet F#

Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-12-20 18:45

Well, before making merry with the rat tailed files as our David would suggest, I would take a close look at the thumb hole pad. Depending upon age, level of use/abuse, and humidity, the pad on the thumbplate can be damaged enough that the outer surface (the "skin") can be partially cut free.

If this happens, then the tonehole will still seal well (since you exert a lot of pressure with that fat little thumb of yours acting directly on the pad), but as the pad opens from the hole a "flap" of the pad's skin can dangle downward towards the tonehole seat, partially obscuring the hole and thus muffling the tone.

Only after I was 100% certain that the pad was integral (and was seating properly) would I take other measures.

This is the sad voice of experience here. I had a similar problem with the RH 1 finger plateau on my Selmer Model 33 bass. The pad "skin" was partially cut free and dangled enough to cause the muffling but not enough to be seen without taking the key off of the horn.

Everything else was tried to correct the "problem", and it was tried by some repair people who I still consider to be top drawer folks. Only when a spring got hooked free by a cleaning cloth did the key have to come off of the horn's body, and it was at that time that all became clear in an instant. Ten minutes work to seat a new pad, and my long time "stuffy" B natural (when played with the fork fingering) became clean and resonant.

Whenever I hear something go "stuffy", the first thing that I suspect is the tone hole passage, and the second is the pad that closes that passage.

Note that none of this applies to the alto clarinet. If you have a stuffy sounding note on an alto, the appropriate solution is to fix it with an eight pound sledge hammer...

leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com

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