 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: bbrandha
Date: 2013-02-08 04:36
Tonight at our local youth symphony practice, I played a metal clarinet that I just stripped, relacquered, and repadded. I have played one in parades with the horseback band, but I have no idea how in tune I was or wasn't. Tonight, though, I had a tuner. When cold, it was flat. After playing for a while, it was WAY sharp. Is this usual for a metal clarinet?
I have not done any experimenting with mouthpieces or anything. This is the first time it has been played.
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2013-02-08 05:00
I play a metal horn often, and it reacts just as any other material would (though slightly less or more depending on the material because of how it insulates the air in the bore).
Warmer = higher in pitch. Colder = lower in pitch.
Metal clarinets do change temperature more quickly than most other standard materials, though. They're great conductors of heat. (Do a search for "double walled" metal clarinets. One model had a tube to blow into to force warm air between the walls.)
Oh, and it's the temperature of the air in the bore that makes the pitch higher or lower, not the temperature of the clarinet itself.
B.
Post Edited (2013-02-08 05:47)
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-02-08 06:47
"Oh, and it's the temperature of the air in the bore that makes the pitch higher or lower, not the temperature of the clarinet itself."
I'd dispute this. I used to play a metal Eb in a military band and on a cold day I could take the clarinet from the warm practice room, where it was in tune, to the outside. Withing about 30 seconds it was way flat and I had to warm it up by blowing through it or putting it under my coat to sharpen it up again. The temperature of my breath was the same indoors or outdoors, but the temperature of the clarinet varied by perhaps 40 degrees F. As long as I played it it or blew through it, it stayed in tune but if there was a pause in the program we all started flat.
Tony F.
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2013-02-08 09:07
Tony F.,
Read Benade or Ferrum.
When you took the instrument outside, the air inside the bore got colder, hence the pitch went down. Then you put warm air into it, and it came back up again.
Your experience confirms rather than contradicts this. The only other thing that would account for a pitch change would be a change in the length of the clarinet and the diameter of the bore. These two things are so miniscule, especially in a thin-walled metal clarinet, as to probably not contributed to any significant change in pitch because of dimension changes. The bore diameter and the length of the tube would have to change a great deal to make the kind of difference you heard.
If you want to check me out on the dimension changes, you can use the calculators at
www.engineeringtoolbox.com.
If you'd like to check yourself on how pitch changes with air temperature, you can use the calculator at
www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-pitchchange.htm.
Note, for example, that a change in temperature from 65 degrees F to 98.6 degrees F brings the pitch down from 440 to 413, which is about 55 cents difference.
B.
Post Edited (2013-02-08 09:18)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-02-08 09:13
Dear Tony F.,
I have a question about keywork. On plastic clarinets. there is an incredible change in the length of the material (well, incredible enough to make a difference in the distance between posts of one key that sit far apart) between room temperature and say a 35 degree fahrenheit gig. We'd have to shave enough off the longer keys so that in the cold, they would not bind.
Is this the case with metal?
...................Paul Aviles
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2013-02-08 12:08
Paul,
a metal clarinet body has a thermal expansion coefficient that is very close to the keywork's coefficient, hence the possibility of binding keywork is very small as they expand and contract in very similar magnitudes. Plastic "works" far more than metal.
I've played in freezing (-15°C) temperature with both plastic (Bundy) and metal clarinets, and the Bundy would bind while the metal one would not.
--
Ben
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-02-08 23:16
Thanks for your post, B, I learn something new every day.
Paul, I don't recall any occasions where temperature changes caused binding on my metal Eb, although I have experienced this with hard rubber instruments. I also had a wood Selmer which had a very intermittent chirp, which eventually proved to be a temperature-related bind.
Tony F.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2013-02-09 15:13
The fact that a cold clarinet can so dramatically cool the air in the bore has always nagged at me. It seems to me that the heat transfer to the air is not great. The air moves only slowly past the walls, and most of it doesn't even touch the cool body of the clarinet, and the warm expelled air is replenished by the player.
BUT clarinets warm up and sharpen their pitch.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-02-09 16:50
If you consider band instruments such as flutes and saxes are made entirely from metal, the keys on these never bind up when played outside in the cold.
Also brass instrument valves still function in cold conditions, so metal instruments are the least affected by thermal expansion/contraction compared to plastic bodied ones which are greatly affected by thermal expansion/contraction, especially when metal keywork is involved.
Wooden instruments will shrink and expand in width far more than length due to the grain structure, but this is more humidity related than temperature. This causes cross mounted keys to become sluggish or bind up as the pillars move, so they require a degree of end play relative to their length. Quarter sawn timber which is used for joints becomes oval when it shrinks and expands.
On plastic bodied instruments, keys mounted on long barrels or rods require more end (lateral) play between pillars than keys with shorter key barrels, so you have to ensure there's end play relative tp the length of key barrel or rod.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2013-02-09 19:59
Chris P wrote:
> Also brass instrument valves still function in cold
> conditions
Hmmm, I've witnessed brass going silent because their valves literally froze in their machines. Admittedly, these were rather adverse conditions then...
Minibal (google) have an interesting concept with enough end play without making keywork clattery.
--
Ben
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2013-02-09 20:11
I should've added '... provided they use a good quality valve oil.' there.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2013-02-11 20:01
Chris, I seem to remember that the valves weren't completely stuck but refused to return to their home position. Maybe condensation built up near the various bores in the piston and the corresponding brass tubes (our brass uses La Tromba, I thought it was good enough for most occasions).
At the same time, the open big pads on my Bundy alto built icicle lumps between pad surface and toneholes.
Maybe it was just a tad cold back then...
--
Ben
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