Author: John B Dick
Date: 2010-05-15 10:53
In the 1960's The Clyde Valley Stompers disbaded and their instrument sale included a C bass clarinet.
If you need to transpose all the time, the Contra Alto is the expensive but best answer with useful extra range. Otherwise you have to learn what brass band trombonists have to learn when given parts written in the orchestral convention.
If its only a small proprtion of what you play, scan the parts into Sibelius.
German artisan makers could make a C Bass at a huge price. The economics are quite different from the Soprano sizes.
You buy the normal German clarinet direct from a workshop in which five people work, one of whom has played the instrument before he put his name on it and approved its sale under his brand. The cost is not so different from the mass produced French instrument which has added costs of distribution, stockholding, retailer's profit and advertising.
The Bass clarinet is hugely more expensive in Gemany because the measurements, tools, jigs and fixtures do not already exist in the workshop, and there is now a large enough international market for the French instrument to be mass produced. A German music school, which refuses to teach the French instrument, has recently bought a Boehm system bass for its wind band and the player has to play both systems.
A French manufacturer might not be willing to make a C bass at any price, because it does not fit with their production system. A German maker would find it no more costly to make than any other one-off design, but would probably prefer not to make it in the Boehm.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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